you might not like Obama ,but you got to agree with this

reply to post by Carreau

If you have a credit card and the limit is $5000 and you max it out the company will not let you charge anything else. You are only allowed to pay off the balance. If there is no debt limit increase the only way the US will default is if the government CHOOSES not to pay the debt and keep spending on other things.

The US Government does not have a "credit card".

I am so sick of hearing this false analogy...the Republicans have sold this analogy to those who don't understand economics.

Credit Card: A company lending you money because they make money off the purchase (stores have to pay the credit card company to accept their card purchases) and they get money off of interest if you carry a balance. People who use credit cards use them because they don't have means to raise money otherwise.

US Government "borrowing": Selling bonds to investors with the promise of repayment with interest based on their projected growth. The US Government uses bonds because they are in high demand and it is another revenue channel. All bond holders are investors into the United States.


It is a false analogy, it was used because Republicans knew simpletons would run with it and spread it. They knew that most people have an idea of "debt = bad" because they don't understand economics. And it has worked...and it really pisses me off to see so many people completely misinformed and worse, think they know what they are talking about.

Actually, NO. It has actually reduced the debt burden marginally by not paying a bunch of non-essential workers.

reply to post by damwel


Oh god forbid that happens McCain would have a heart attack The Reps would have no reason to run for office. The world would have a piece of mind the US would have no NSA CIA, Travel would be free No DHS TSA.. we can not have that now can we?

reply to post by tallcool1

The "shut down" has not really caused "completely unnecessary damage" to the economy. What is causing completely unnecessary damage to the economy is the relentless spending by the government.

No, you are just wrong.

The spending didn't cause us a hit in GDP growth...the government shutdown did.

You can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts.

reply to post by damwel


Does the US spend more on your industrial military complex or education? I bet I know your answer.

But here is what is actually spent.

Total Government Spending in the United States Federal, State, and Local -5yr -1yr Fiscal Year 2014 +1yr +4yr

Government Pensions $1.2 trillion
Government Health Care + $1.3 trillion
Government Education + $1.0 trillion
National Defense + $0.8 trillion
Government Welfare + $0.5 trillion
All Other Spending + $1.6 trillion
Total Government Spending $6.5 trillion
Federal Deficit

Source

JIMC5499

What cracks me up are the people blaming the Republicans and the Tea Party for the problems caused by the shutdown. The Executive Branch determines what would and wouldn't be cut. That places the blame squarely at the feet of Obama. He did his best to hurt the maximum number of people so that he could put pressure on the Republicans to let him have what he wanted.

Agreed, and the doublespeak was in full swing. They caused it, and repeated lies over and over, and over.

I bet they even had one of those "swear jars" they have to contribute to when they forgot to put the word "Republican" in front of "shut down".

The overall picture, here, is that we just witnessed a Chicago style shakedown of the American people.

Pass it to see what's in it, block any attempt to water down the kickbacks, hide all the no-bid contracts, and hand out billions to their buddies.

It's about asserting control, not our health, and our personal data is front and center!

I honestly think people have no clue what's really happening here.

The Chicago thug, and his gang of bandits, strong armed everyone, and the pussies on the hill couldn't muster the spine to stand up to it.

Yesterday was one of the darkest days our nation has ever suffered.

reply to post by abacus10


and this is how ???? 24 billion out of the economy is lost not gained so who is to go without that income being spread around the poor thats who. lets cut more aid to the poor to make up lost income VA is cut WIC is s cut EBT cut SS cut but the rich get an 10% refund on taxes due , for them having to pick up the slack

reply to post by bekod


Oh you mean the parks obama CHOSE to shut down that wasn't shut down during the last one? Tell me again who you should be mad at?

reply to post by bekod


Sounds good to me! Let's you and I run for office.

gladtobehere
reply to post by bekod

 

Well it shouldnt have added to the debt, government wasnt able to spend.

That's a nice thought but not reality unfortunately. Just like the Walmart shoppers who found out there was no limit on their EBT cards many agencies continued to spend during the shutdown. Each year every department is allotted a certain amount of money. At the end of the fiscal year any money leftover gets spent in an orgy of throwing money out the window on everything under the sun. They have no incentive to not spend it. In fact, if they don't Congress thinks they wont need as much next year and cut their budget back.

There's a thread full of government requisitions, mostly for military and DHS. It's an incredible list of stuff amounting to billions and billions of $ while our government was supposed to be "shutdown". The only thing shut down was services to the public. They made sure they served themselves and their agencies.

reply to post by damwel

only if we can fire them all Dem Reps Libs Indes all of them and get those that have no agenda at all in... TSA DHS is the first to go... the NSA complex in Utah gets to be a gaming server free to use. 10% tax for all... less than $20 thousand income no tax. Obama Care gets a facelift 1% of your income pays for your plan. it will not be forced by a tax but you have the right to opt out at no penalty. one can only dream.

The shutdown was a grand stand show boat if there ever was one! it did nothing at all but hurt the US and its people. The ones behind it should have their pay taken to cover the coast it put on the economy.

here is a run down of the GOP shut DOwn and what it cost the taxpayer www.nbcnews.com... $24 billion the GOP should hang its head in shame. the real amount will be unknown for some time but i would say add another 2 billion in lost revenue from the link

If the goal of the government shutdown was to help taxpayers by curbing government spending and boosting the economy, supporters of the idea got it all wrong.

As the dust settles, economists are adding up the collateral damage. The results aren’t pretty:

The loss of government services during the three-week shutdown will take a roughly $3.1 billion bite out of gross domestic product, according to economists at IHS Global Insight. That represents just the hit from lost government services.
The shutdown also forced non-government business losses, temporary layoffs and other interruptions in business spending. The full extent of the damage won’t be known for some time. Economists at Standard & Poor’s estimate the total cost at about $24 billion, or a 0.6 percent GDP haircut. Others guess it's about half that. Either way, it's a heavy price to pay.
Then there's the loss in U.S. economic prestige, which is also hard to gauge, but keeps getting whittled away every time Washington goes into gridlock over spending.
“The exact impact on the rest of the economy will be hard to measure until delayed economic data are released,” according to the research note by IHS economists Doug Handler and Paul Edelstein.

But they estimate the economy will grow at just a 1.6 percent annual rate in the last three months of the year – less than the 2.2 percent they had expected if the government had stayed open.

Those tens of billions of dollars of lost economic activity (along with a shortfall in government taxes on that activity) were obliterated by a political standoff that produced little more than a pact to try again to reach a long-term agreement in three months.

and for what to go through this mess again in Feb 2014!!!!

MamaJ
reply to post by bekod

 

What a show... magically coming together after scaremongering for 16 days.

I saw it coming... knew they would Magically come together and not default.

These people need to pack up and go home... what a disgrace to the American people... we have to call these dumb a$$es leaders. lol

In any thread on this subject, there is someone with your viewpoint (which is my viewpoint, too) that makes a post. You can see that, for whatever reason, the viewpoint we have is not as popular as the partisan sh# slinging that ensues (as evidenced by the user feedback methodology of "stars").

This disappoints me. Here we have an obvious example of a manufactured crisis by our government. And instead of what I thought was an intelligent forum membership responding with, "Oh Pul-leeze" and an eyeroll, it seems they have actually engaged this debacle as a non-fictional event.

THIS is why I have no faith that any elections will ever create change. They aren't "sheeple". I have said it before: dumb cows. Just standing there, staring back, chewing their cud. If you can't see through this ruse, then seeing through electioneering is hopeless.

abacus10
Actually, NO. It has actually reduced the debt burden marginally by not paying a bunch of non-essential workers.

They will still be paid. So nix that idea.

The government closes up shop, but still pays its employees to produce no work. Except the employees that still had to work...without getting paid.

reply to post by 12m8keall2c


Yikes! On it!

The new format doesn't seem to notify of new PM's quite as well!

windword
reply to post by bekod

 

all over the Obama care?? no there has to be more to it than some health plan

Yep! Republicans, from the get go, have a affirmed and reaffirmed their resolve to sabotage this president's efforts at every turn, and this "do nothing" Congress has done just that.

I wish their resolve was stronger. Every Obama move brings more harm to US, his Administration acts as occupying hostile force, so sabotaging the enemy is noble.

reply to post by MystikMushroom

Was this a serious comment or sarcasm?

Carreau
If you have a credit card and the limit is $5000 and you max it out the company will not let you charge anything else. You are only allowed to pay off the balance. If there is no debt limit increase the only way the US will default is if the government CHOOSES not to pay the debt and keep spending on other things.

But it does force a defacto balanced budget amendment because they will only be allowed to spend what they have. No one is saying this in the media because no one in power wants to reduce spending because that reduces the power the politicians of both parties wield over the citizens.

Raising the debt limit puts the nation at a greater risk of default because once the interest rates rise then we will not be able to make the payments. We have never entered into a recession with interest rates at 0%, when that happens the Fed will be out of options and then hyperinflation and a collapsed economy. They know this but are allowing it to happen and the population are too stupid to notice or care.

You, aren't thinking like the criminals in charge right now there are two things off the top of my head they could do pretty easily if we enter another recession while interest rates are already low.

The first would be for negative interest rates. Actually one of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors said in 2010

Accommodative policy is appropriate, in my view, because the economy is operating well below its potential and inflation is undesirably low. If it were possible to take interest rates into negative territory I would be voting for that” – San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President

The person who said that was none other than Janet Louise Yellen, who is on tap to replace Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve. You'd have a clue that they were going to do that by things like limiting the amount of money that can be transferred overseas, limiting cash withdrawals, and some other things that escape my mind right now. I'm already seeing some pretty decent evidence of Chase, Bank of America, and others limiting amounts able to be transferred overseas on November 17th of this year. I didn't really believe it until I saw an official denial from Chase.

The next thing they could do, but I doubt they'd have the guts unless it comes on the heels of a stock market crash is seize US Citizens 401ks and IRAs. I imagine it would go something like this: massive stock market crash, and as people are wailing at how badly their IRAs and 401ks are hurting the government comes in and offers to make them whole by exchanging the assets in those vehicles to some type of R-bond. There have been some trial balloons about this already.

I'm not as evil as the banksters and politicians who are in charge of this country so there are probably a good 10 or so major policies they could try that I can't even fathom if we hit another recession while at unnaturally low interest rates.

reply to post by AlienScience


So you're saying that 14 trillion dollars of debt is a good thing?

reply to post by Carreau


The problem is that the GOP only SEEMS TO WORRY ABOUT DEBT WHEN THERE IS A DEMOCRAT IN OFFICE.
Bush and the others have actually raised the debt higher than the DEMS.
YOU DON’T HEAR THE GOP YELLING THEN ABOUT DEBT.

Clinton left Bush A balanced budget!