The True Cause of the Impending Collapse of the US Economy

reply to post by seabag


I agree with you seabag. They spend too much.....let's start cutting the spending by bringing the troops home.

Agreed?

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
reply to post by camaro68ss

 

I did look, SS and medicare are not there! there off budget accounts

Look under health care. Medicaire is listed under senior medical services.

Under pensions, SS is listed as "Old Age". What a horrible name.

no its not there. did you just randomly pick these and say there SS and Medicare? Why not just call them SS instead of "old age"

again SS and Medicare are in "trust funds" and not counted in the yearly budget. Educate yourselves people

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by queenannie38

 

The reason our economy is crumbling is very simple: The government spends entirely too damn much of our money on BS - and - their policies are killing rather than creating jobs. They are spending increasingly more money while destroying the very people and entities that provide that money via taxes; this is completely unsustainable.

Exactly my point!

And what is this 'BS' they are spending our money on?
War and military and homeland security and defense and the nuclear program (hidden in the Dept of Energy) and on and on and on...

From What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy:

Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.

Treating heart disease and diabetes, by contrast, would probably cost about $50 billion a year. The remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations — held up in Congress partly because of their cost — might cost somewhat less. Universal preschool would be $35 billion. In Afghanistan, $10 billion could make a real difference. At the National Cancer Institute, annual budget is about $6 billion.

Pretty much everything other than war...except for the cost of a top-heavy national government...is NOT bs....and although I haven't looked up the figures about gov't administrative costs yet, I'm betting that even that expense is dwarfed by the expenses of our propensity to war.

reply to post by camaro68ss


It's in the trust fund huh? Ok, please just answer my last question.

Now please justify the reasoning to take away SS and medical programs before we stop spending money on murder?

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
reply to post by camaro68ss

 

Ok, let's assume that what you say is true.

Now please justify the reasoning to take away SS and medical programs before we stop spending money on murder?

Please point to the post where i say we need to spend money on murdering?

Defence spending needs to be cut, SS and medicare needs to be cut to. There needs to be a 70-80% cut to all three.

you dont make the cuts then the government will defend its solvency by printing money. you print money, you still get your SS check but you can only buy a loaf of bread.

Make the hair cuts now and have a chance or kick the can down the road and get beheaded when the country collapses due to debt overload

your choice? you want to see 30-40 million american go hunger because of these cuts that need to be made or do you want to see 318 million americans go hungery after the economic collapse???

reply to post by sheepslayer247

I agree with you seabag. They spend too much.....let's start cutting the spending by bringing the troops home.

Agreed?

If you mean bringing home the US troops engaged in illegal/unconstitutional wars then YES….I agree.

If you mean closing all of our military bases overseas and isolating ourselves by limiting our military capabilities and strategic alliances then I disagree.

reply to post by camaro68ss

Please point to the post where i say we need to spend money on murdering?

Never claimed that you did.
But you did say this....

Yeah the war budget has some affect on the overall yearly deficit but it’s not as big as your portray here. Estimates I hear for the two wars are in is 1 trillion dollars spent total in the last 10 years.

What the major problems are entitlements! Let me ask you a question. How is Greece going bankrupt and they having little to no army? How is Spain going bankrupt with little to no army? How is Italy going bankrupt with little to no army? It’s because of the entitlement spending. Social security is a Ponzi scheme, Medicare is a ponzi scheme and Obama care will be the same. All these entitlements are paid by the young and use by the old. When Social security started it was 38 people paid into it for every 1 person receiving benefits. Now it’s 3 to 1! Its said there is now more money being withdrawn then deposited into social security. By the year 2030 Social Security will have NO MONEY LEFT!!!

See, you tried to correlate financial problems with the LACK of an army. Thereby insinuating that military spending is good for financial stability and entitlement programs are the real culprit.

reply to post by seabag


That's a first step.

We do not have to close all bases oversees, but we do need to compromise on how extended we place our assets. Ever play chess? You never leave your king exposed by moving all of your pieces forward.

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
reply to post by camaro68ss

 

Please point to the post where i say we need to spend money on murdering?

Never claimed that you did.
But you did say this....

Yeah the war budget has some affect on the overall yearly deficit but it’s not as big as your portray here. Estimates I hear for the two wars are in is 1 trillion dollars spent total in the last 10 years.

What the major problems are entitlements! Let me ask you a question. How is Greece going bankrupt and they having little to no army? How is Spain going bankrupt with little to no army? How is Italy going bankrupt with little to no army? It’s because of the entitlement spending. Social security is a Ponzi scheme, Medicare is a ponzi scheme and Obama care will be the same. All these entitlements are paid by the young and use by the old. When Social security started it was 38 people paid into it for every 1 person receiving benefits. Now it’s 3 to 1! Its said there is now more money being withdrawn then deposited into social security. By the year 2030 Social Security will have NO MONEY LEFT!!!

See, you tried to correlate financial problems with the LACK of an army. Thereby insinuating that military spending is good for financial stability and entitlement programs are the real culprit.

edit on 10-8-2012 by sheepslayer247 because: (no reason given)

you never awnsered my question and im still waiting on where SS and Medicare are on the “public debt” numbers?

And military spending is not good for the economy. your putting words in my mouth that i never said. Im pointing to the fact that intitlements bankrupt countrys.

Originally posted by camaro68ss
no its not there. did you just randomly pick these and say there SS and Medicare? Why not just call them SS instead of "old age"

again SS and Medicare are in "trust funds" and not counted in the yearly budget. Educate yourselves people

We are.


The trust fund portions of the budget...that is, the mandatory entitlement spending/programs are included in the yearly budget the same as the rest which is funded by income tax and is called discretionary spending as opposed to mandatory.

Discretionary and Mandatory Spending

The difference is that mandatory spending is not allocated by amount each year but is legislated on longer time periods and is not something that can be cut back on if times are tight...if people meet the eligibility requirements for these programs, then the funds must be accounted for. So their inclusion in the yearly federal budget is an estimate based on previous years' accounting.

But they are most certainly a part of the yearly federal budget...the biggest part, relatively speaking, when we are only looking at the "Budget of the United States Government."

However, it is not where the majority of our income taxes are going every year...in fact, since these are funded by employee/employer contributions before the paycheck is signed, so to speak...they are separate entirely from income tax funds, which are the source of funding for the rest of the budget in question.

Wars are paid for by neither one of these means at the present time. Cuts in income tax mean that the funds for war must be borrowed. But the interest on the money borrowed, no matter from who or what it is borrowed, is then written into the budget that is funded by all of us...either through FICA etc or income tax....for most of us, both.
It really doesn't matter if it is public debt or intra-governmental debt we are paying back because the simple fact is that we are paying it back through our income taxes.

It is estimated that in 2009, the government spent $1.90 for every $1.00 collected in tax. This is because of the debt owed from borrowing to pay for war.

reply to post by queenannie38

Exactly my point!

And what is this 'BS' they are spending our money on?
War and military and homeland security and defense and the nuclear program (hidden in the Dept of Energy) and on and on and on...

I don’t think military spending is a waste of money. If it is then explain why China and other countries continue to expand theirs?

I do think there are plenty of areas to cut with regard to defense spending, particularly black projects that siphon money. Surely we don’t need DHS nor do we need 20 alphabet agencies. However, WE ALSO don’t need socialized medicine, pork barrel handouts, kickbacks and other waste and abuse, etc.

To blame all of the nation’s problems on wars is a stretch. The numbers simply don’t support that theory. I would agree that spending needs to be cut in MANY areas including defense, but liberals always cut defense and it never helps curb their spending habits or fix the economy; the money just goes other places.

Originally posted by camaro68ss
you never awnsered my question and im still waiting on where SS and Medicare are on the “public debt” numbers?

They are not.
They are 'intragovernmental debt.'

The U.S. national public debt consists of two components:

Debt held by the public includes Treasury securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by individuals, corporations, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments.

Debt held by government accounts or intragovernmental debt mainly includes non-marketable Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government that are owed to program beneficiaries, such as the Social Security Trust Fund. Debt held by government accounts represents the cumulative surpluses, including interest earnings, of these accounts that have been invested in Treasury securities.

en.wikipedia.org...

And military spending is not good for the economy. your putting words in my mouth that i never said. Im pointing to the fact that intitlements bankrupt countrys.

How can the money that is taken out of YOUR paycheck...that YOU earn fair and square with your own efforts and energy...intended to be put aside for when the day comes that you can no longer earn the money you need to eat and provide other necessities for yourself and family....be the cause of national bankruptcy?

Picture this...you put YOUR own money in the bank on a weekly basis....for a 'rainy day' sometime in the future...and YOU do not withdraw that money until you need it...trusting the bank to hold it for you until then...and then the day comes that you DO need it...you go to the bank to get out YOUR money...and are told that your deposit account was bankrupting the bank and therefore was done away with...OR that the money you put into that account...PLUS the interest it should have been earning as promised by the bank...that it was paid out in incremental loans, bit by bit, to finance the bank officers' softball league tournament excursions...and SORRY...there is no way to pay it back since it is time for tourney once again!....

Too bad...so sad...

How are you going to feel about that?
Is that fair?
Was that your money or the bank's?
How could what you earned and put aside be a cost much less a contributing factor to the bank's insolvency?

reply to post by queenannie38


Technically there separate accounts but there really not. Remember the hole debt ceiling debacle last year? Remember when Obama said he could not guarantee SS checks would go out if we reached the ceiling. I know, you’re asking yourself that question now, how can that be possible if there two different accounts??? Well your government raided the SS trust fund to pay for their war and pet projects now.

theres no money left. Im paying into a ponzi scheme by force. A ponzi scheme that i will never get to see a cent out of.

Cost of war is very high, but you also need to factor in the cost of running the Pentagon (and all the retirement costs), as well as the costs of paying out for weapons systems running late in their development (the Government still pays on time even when contractors are late) and other hidden costs.

I bet $4 trillion is very much on the light side.

Originally posted by ctdannyd
reply to post by queenannie38

 

Very well written and researched. And, I must say I totally agree with all you've said here in these words.

I'm surprised the trolls haven't descended yet!

S & F for a great post!

The trolls are here. It is mismanaged activities all over the place that will cause our breakdown. The Peoples in greed, The PIG greeder will bring us all down. There are many of them all over the place.

Originally posted by babybunnies
Cost of war is very high, but you also need to factor in the cost of running the Pentagon (and all the retirement costs), as well as the costs of paying out for weapons systems running late in their development (the Government still pays on time even when contractors are late) and other hidden costs.

I bet $4 trillion is very much on the light side.

Yes, I tend to agree!
It is quite a task rounding up sources and facts for this kind of research project...and I've been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks intently and a couple of years generally...so I felt like I just needed to get it started.

The weapons are an unbelievable strain on the budget, and especially when we've been paying so much for things that turn out to be totally useless either because of poor engineering or untenable maintenance costs.

F-22
news.yahoo.com...

F-35
www.msnbc.msn.com...

Lockheed and Martin only paid around 15% corporate taxes in 2010 and DoD contracts account for 60% of their production revenue.

fcnl.org...


This article gives some idea about where some of this waste is going...well, I'm sure they don't see it as waste...they are counting on Social Security for their later years, either, I bet.

Originally posted by camaro68ss
reply to post by queenannie38

 

Technically there separate accounts but there really not. Remember the hole debt ceiling debacle last year? Remember when Obama said he could not guarantee SS checks would go out if we reached the ceiling. I know, you’re asking yourself that question now, how can that be possible if there two different accounts??? Well your government raided the SS trust fund to pay for their war and pet projects now.

theres no money left. Im paying into a ponzi scheme by force. A ponzi scheme that i will never get to see a cent out of.

compliments of all them PIG greeders. Peoples in greed. They all over the place, we're overrun by the pig. It has uprooted almost all the GREEN that is to be had. grunt,grunt, oink,oink,oink

reply to post by camaro68ss

you never awnsered my question and im still waiting on where SS and Medicare are on the “public debt” numbers?

Looks like Queenannie beat me to it and did a pretty good job explaining it.

And military spending is not good for the economy. your putting words in my mouth that i never said. Im pointing to the fact that intitlements bankrupt countrys.

I apologize, but it seems like you are trying to make that very correlation.

Look, let's be honest here.

We would have to spend almost three times as much on "entitlements" just to equal that in Military and comparable spending. If we can all agree that wars are bad, why do we have to even discuss ending assistance for people when it is much easier and more humanitarian to start with the war chest?

I don't understand why we have to make such a big deal about programs that help people. It makes no sense to me. I see everyday the value of such programs and the people that abuse or defraud the assistance programs are very few and far between. So why do we want to cut something like that?

Originally posted by camaro68ss
reply to post by queenannie38

 

Technically there separate accounts but there really not. Remember the hole debt ceiling debacle last year? Remember when Obama said he could not guarantee SS checks would go out if we reached the ceiling. I know, you’re asking yourself that question now, how can that be possible if there two different accounts???

No, actually I'm not asking myself that question...I understand more and more about how this works and that's because I've asked those questions already..and many more.

Well your government raided the SS trust fund to pay for their war and pet projects now.

Is that not what I've been trying to explain to you, assuming, falsely, it appears, that you didn't understand?

And it is not YOUR government as well as mine?
This assumption I make, now, based on your next statement:

theres no money left. Im paying into a ponzi scheme by force. A ponzi scheme that i will never get to see a cent out of.

No. A Ponzi scheme is one in which people believe that the money they invest will bring a greater return in interest, dividends, whatever...which they later discover was not the case at all...that the 'interest' they were being paid is the actual money they principally invested...while the schemers were profiting on the gains the investors were counting on.

A trust fund is one in which money is set aside for a specific purpose and while it often earns interest as does the SS fund...the interest itself is NOT the principle goal for the money being held in trust...it is the principle which is held in trust, not the interest...which should be a fringe or perk benefit and could be, if the government wasn't borrowing against it to the point at which they likely cannot repay what they've borrowed...

That's more like embezzlement or maybe just poor bookkeeping...poor judgements...it is impossible to run any budget in the red for too long before all the budget categories within it are in the red, too.

The reason we are in the red is because of the money spent on war...which is mostly all borrowed these days...we cannot pay for war now...how can we repay the loans made for our wars in the future?

I do not think the government set out to defraud us on purpose...the fraud going on here is not financial thievery but rather leaving us out of these decisions and keeping the facts obscure and hard to find so that we waste all our time arguing about the finer points of economics which we scarcely understand so that we won't get together and protest this spending as is our right as American citizens.

In lieu of outright criminal acts, the second best plan is to DIVERT and to DISTRACT.

Originally posted by cloaked4u

The trolls are here. It is mismanaged activities all over the place that will cause our breakdown. The Peoples in greed, The PIG greeder will bring us all down. There are many of them all over the place.

Indeed they are...the trolls, that is...not sure who you refer to as the PIG so I'm leaving that one alone...I'm going to assume you don't mean the people who are in need and who benefit from entitlements...because greed is wanting more than is needed...the people who qualify for help are those that don't even have what they need.




Nice avatar, too, btw.