buffon01

iTrader: (9)

I couldn't find sarcasm font when I posted. I know where the racism lies... They president now.

Anyone willing to expose that, not that is hidden just conveniently ignored, is labeled a racist.

thenuge26

iTrader: (2)

Saying that isn't racist. Implying that the reason for all those things happening is due to the color of their skin is.

Obviously there is a reason behind it. The racists will say that it's because black people are lazy and entitled, but that IS racist. I don't know why, but if I had to guess I would say that this country isn't as tolerant as everyone thinks it is.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Okay, we can start by cutting the entire discretionary budget (since entitlements are mandatory). That will disband: the military, the TSA, DHS, IRS, FBI, EPA, Etc.

By sadly, we will still be in the hole about 250 billion a year.

Okay, so now we come to raising taxing. Cool! let's make up that 250 billion shortcoming...although without the IRS it will be hard. But okay.

So we raise the rates up and...uh huh, since the laffer curve is real, we maintain an average of collecting 18% of GDP in taxes...and we don't actually collect more revenue.




since, it doesn't matter how much you raise taxes, other than help you win an election by raging class warefare, the only thing that can really rudece deficits and balance budgets and reduce debts is to do something about mandatory payments and nothing more.


Insert strawman argument here: ----V

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

1) Braineack, you left out "growth" as an option.

2) Why is the national debt bad? Why are deficits bad?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

1. Public growth is 1%, Economy growth is 2%.
2. It's bad if it becomes so large that it becomes inflationary. They aren't always, public debt is private savings; so I'm told. Im sure you'll argue that government surpluses are actually the unsustainable thing and some long drawn out reason why that I cant comprehend. I'm not smart enough to have an opinion either way, but I find that our entitlement, specifically, damages the economy, and our country tremendously.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

I'm not sure why I'm going to tackle this, since it invariably turns out bad. I think I agree with you, and am going to provide my standard response to bigots.

We're all products of our environment.

I do believe that there are cultures that promote bad decisions which lead to dependence, and it crosses skin color lines (which really do not matter). Where skin tone does come in is with real discrimination that makes a lot of bad decisions easier to make, and fosters the cultures that breed them.

It's easy to tell someone that we all have the same opportunities. In reality many in this country are discouraged daily from pulling themselves up. It is harder when you're poor, or a minority. My firstborn's godfather wrote a thesis for his doctorate in education on how minorities perform on standardized testing, and why. Educational differences are an obvious hindrance we conveniently ignore.

Yes, technically you can take the same route. Yet everyone in front of you is looking down, and expecting you to just get by. Everyone around you is showing you how easy it is to just slack off, doing less than what is needed to support yourself. Until all of that is gone there will continue to be a demographic which has a disproportionate share of dependents.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

yeah, lazy white people.

njn63

iTrader: (4)

Can you shrink that graph some more? It almost looks like a straight line.

When 1% of GDP is 150 billion, I think it's worth looking at it closer than from 10 feet away.

rleete

iTrader: (21)

If that is true, then bigots have every right to use that as an excuse, same as the dependants. You foster a nanny state, expect there to be those who will come to rely on it. By the same token, there will be those that resent it, and call them lazy. That it falls out along racial lines is not surprising. It's what the media has reiterated, over and over.

gospeed81

iTrader: (51)

I don't think arguing formation of opinions being a product of media environment as equivalent to life choices influenced by your real world environment is fair.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

1. I'm not sure what you mean by public growth. But economic growth was what I was getting at. If you can get economic growth moving at a more reasonable clip, the automatic stabilizers built in to the system tend to reduce the need for massive tax hikes or massive spending cuts.

For example, without either, look at the fiscal deficit as a percent of GDP over the past 3 years.

2. You are smart enough, you just haven't had the same exposure to the information or taken the time to learn it (nor have most people, nor did I until a few year ago). [Edit: Although I am making some inroads with my repetitive drum-beating!] "Everything changed in 1971 except the textbooks."


Ultimately, though, your real concern is one of ideology or philosophy (a society that feels entitled to things they may not have worked for). That is okay, but it's important to distinguish between an ideological concern and an operational concern.


For example, I do not think anyone can convincingly explain to me how a large and growing US fiscal debt leads to price inflation and provide any sort of evidence that is not easily dismissed.


I'm going to let it go at that, as there are enough threads where this topic comes up. The racial and demographic issues or the abuse of tax language is more appropriate for this particular thread.

Sparetire

I always find that I can get a feel for how incredible a viewpoint is by simply stating its ultimate conclusion.

Its also a great way to be both entertained and embittered at the same time.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

population growth. typically when it's slowed it represents a slow economy or better, when the economy sucks, the birthrate is reduced. I believe we are back to great depression pop. growth rates. People dont wanna bring babies into this world cause they aint go no money cuz.

That's not far off. I don't want the US of A to turn into West Berlin. We are headed down that path. So it would be nice to see good fical policy in Washington with a reduction of a biggest issue: entitlements and entitlement spending.

Our Debt alone is 104% of our economy, I really don't see how that can be a good thing at all, I still believe it's a dangerous path. Hell the interest payments alone are going to expotentially take a huge chunk out of the budget and just make it worse. The USA is rated worse than all the EU nations in terms of rising budern of gov't spending.

But Braineack, the USA is a money issuer you say.

Well, my dear friend, I don't care about that. Deficit or Surplus, Issuer or Not, there is one real common bond between all the failing nations--that they all allow the burden of govt to increase faster than the private, productive, sector of the economy. Deficits and Debts are a symptom of this bad policy.

I dont believe that politicians who try to expand government to solve the messes created by previous expansions of government have a clue.

Everything we do today to try to fix issues, is a problem created by some policy of the gov't.

Beyond that, I think entitlements are out of control and dispicable. It's a proven system of failure, time and time again. It doesn't work, no matter how hard to wish apon the my Little Ponies. It's amoral and it's currpotive and it's destorying American values. In 50 short years entitlement spending has increased 100 times; I shudder to think how that has stiffled what could of been. think of all the strawmen that could have benefited...if only. *sigh*

I don't see how you can deny that this will lead to failure. Run on sentence of the year award nominee: We have a system in place that harms the poor and causes unemployement, that is designed to help the poor and cure unemployement, that is taking a bigger and bigger chunk of our economy, and removes incentives for people to maintain and seek jobs, as well as incentives for employers to create jobs. This can't lead to success--gov't dependency that keeps people poor and unemployed while increasing debts and slowing the economy.

We can't live off the 1%, eventually they will become the 2% and 10% and then 50%. Then what? Protest in the streets when the gov't takes away our ice cream?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

okay then:



mind blown?

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

How are interest payment going to take an exponentially larger chunk of the budget? When interest rates on US Treasury securities (the IOUs of our fiscal debt) rise, that will be because the Federal Reserve has raised their target rates. They will do that because we are seeing economic growth.

How are you defining a "failing nation?" The USA's population is about 4% of the global population but our economy generates over 20% of global economic output. In terms of economic output, the only group that outpaces us is...

The European Union.

On an individual nation level, #2 is China (at about half or less of our output, depending on source cited). #3 on an individual nation basis is Japan... Who has a debt-to-GDP level over 200% and have held interest rates close to zero for almost 20 years while fighting deflation.



Many of the "entitlements" are pretty damn reasonable in concept and may be better than the alternatives, even if there are flaws in the execution.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

your mom is flawed.


and Japan will continue to fall from Mt. Fuji. Just as most nations, they held little to no debt in the early 80s. Today, thier SS payments are over 52% of their budgets, coincidentally they hold hte most debt of any country. and Now they just doubled their VAT from 5% to 10% in order to "solve" the problem. Yes, entitlements are awesome and doing wonders for Japan. Just wait for 2040 when they hold 600% debt to GDP and they have a workforce of 0% because all their old our dying off faster than the young can fill jobs.

At least Japan was smart enough to lower the corporate tax rate making us #1 in that department.

Anyways, right now Japan's debt is still considered safe...but it's only a matter of time IMHO.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Only a matter of time until what? Until it's not safe? You know who has been saying that for two decades plus? Bond traders, right before they lost their shirt and then, hopefully, their jobs.


I hate that "it's okay now but it's only a matter of time" BS. You know what else? The sun is okay now, but it's only a matter of time before something really bad happens to that big star at the center of our universe and then... WELL! You better watch out!

In fact, because it's only a matter of time - and it's a certainty - you better start wringing your hands and gnashing your teeth and doing things today that will make you worse off like not going out, saving all of your money, selling your Miata, etc.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

exactly. doomsday preppin' baby.

What did Japan's various stimulus packages in the 1990s net Japan after it's recession?

according to these pretty pictures, not much:





thier unemployement rate was an all time high ten years after still trying to fix the problem of the 90s. For the last fifty years they've down everything but leave the economy alone...and it will keep getting "worse" for them. I use quotes because it worse is subjective since life continues to move forward everday, so as long as we all don't wake up dead, everything is unicorns and candy.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Japan is a lot more complicated than you are making it out and I don't have the energy or interest to be bothered with a full history. I recommend for those with a legitimate interest.


However, the short version is that Japan dealt with a lot of the same political issues the USA has been undergoing. Their initial stimulus was much smaller than the USA's and they continually institute austerity via either spending cuts or tax increases [edit: those have almost the same damn effect on economic growth and both are contractionary!] before a full recovery which institutes a new slide back toward recession, so they cut taxes or increase spending and then do it over again.

Meanwhile, because the politicians in charge of fiscal policy (i.e. gov't spending and taxing) can't get their **** together, the Bank of Japan (their Fed) has been pursuing measures like quantitative easing and zero interest rate policy for decades.


"In worrying about becoming the next Greece, we risk becoming the next Japan." Instead, we have been Japan on fast forward. That's not to say that Obama and the Republicans won't do their best to imitate the Japanese parliament, though.

njn63

iTrader: (4)

You do realize that "top tax bracket" data you keep shoving in my face is worthless, right? I would of been in the top tax bracket from 1988-1990 if you adjust for inflation and, on the other end of the spectrum, you'd need to make around 76.3 million to be in the top tax bracket in 1941.
source

Confirmation bias much?
A broken clock is right twice a day.