hah, young pinkies from columbia & harvard!

so this shows its the same old song.

the US financial system is now a fantasy, the wealth is imaginary. it always was.

the US should use their military to confiscate the banks and strip the banks of thieir imaginary shackles they have over people and countries.

the entire global financial system is a ponzi scheme built on *investor confidence* and printing out dollar bills.

i am going to do something i rarely do and that is to come to the defense of the govt..

a big part of the problem is that govt workers that give the thumbs up or thumbs down to extending some benefits just dont have the heart, will power, or intelligence to see past the bullshit..

in my city there is an experiment taking place..

my city has built a $50 million dollar housing project that is privately managed..

this project is a mix of subsidized housing, free housing, and low cost rentals..

if you trash your place, you are kicked out of the program forever..

if you dont pay your rent on time, you are kicked out of the program forever..

i dont know what happens if you are low cost rental and do either of the two aforementioned, but i suspect you will be blacklisted..

everyone is hoping that by privatizing the housing programs, the emotional element will be taken out, but that remains to be seen...

my point is that i believe and support in giving a mad a hand up, but i dont support gining a hand out..

if a person doesnt want to improve their life and is just looking for a free handout paid for by the taxpayers then they should be left to deal with the same problems that most americans have to deal with..

and that is that they end up homeless..

if people die because they dont want to contribute, then so be it..

it sad for the kids that are brought into this world by no choice of their own..

maybe we can find a solution for them, but i have no compassion for someone who shits out kids knowing they will be unable to support them and rely on the govt to fix their problems..

my brother taught school for two years in low income school districts while he was getting his masters and he was amazed and diseheartened by all the kids that he taught that were told by their single parents that they were worthless and would end up just like their deadbeat fathers...

their single parents had no desire for their children to be better than they were and basically had no desire to learn..

as soon as he finished his masters he quite and moved on to corporate life..

those kids were a lost cause and no matter how much money was thrown at the problem, those attitudes could not be changed..

at some point we as a people must understand that we need to cut our loses and accept the fact that some cannot be saved and move on to the ones that can be saved..

at some point we, as a society, need to realize that spending $20 million dollars to help one child make it is not worth the cost and that if we are to make forward progress, then some people are not going to make it with or without help.... :2 cents:






.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the folks who want to raise taxes are right.

Let's take a look at how much money we owe...this should be easy enough to tax it all away and just keep on spending :)

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

raising taxes will only work if there is major reform to spending..

and that is the challenge... :2 cents:




.

True...but TODAY the U.S. govt. spent around 10 BILLION dollars. And took in "only" 5 BILLION dollars.

So while they are arguing about the debt...they just keep on spending more than they have! It's total bullshit and they should all be in prison. Every damn one of them from both political parties because they are all crooks.

Is there any way to even collect 5 BILLION more dollars in taxes PER DAY???

I'm not sure that if the govt. decided to steal ALL of our money and from every company in the U.S. that it would be able to pay just what they are spending RIGHT NOW. Much less the actual debt and interest on that debt.

They need to STOP SPENDING.

Most of the debt is held by US taxpayers. The majority of it beeing the retirement founds of your fellow americans, that were PAID for by taxpayers and 'borrowed' by your gov.

What you guys need to do is get the hell out of policing the world, and invest in your country. Your departement of defense is what, 10x your dep of education ? big problem there.

Interest payment are about 9% of what you guys pay in expenses. That's nothing to default on.

Well lets just hope that pussy obama doesn't let boehner assfuck him, that he calls the republican bluff, and lets the republicans drive us into the debt ceiling.

Because it's the only thing that will teach americans anything.

The republicans want the federal government to collpase, the dems should let them collapse it.

Thats not what is going to hapen, this is all theatre playing to the envy and gullibility of the average americans. Obama will cave totally and give the republicans more than they asked for in cuts, with the merest token of tax increases.

You don't think that the fact that the US and Europe were there to help makes a current US collapse quite different from the russian collapse?

When Russia collapsed the rest of the worlds economomy was in a robust stage, oil was cheap, money was flowing around the planet, and there was a line of countries who wanted to buy into russias plentiful oil and gas and sell to their people who had been deprived of consumer goods for 50 years.

We have comparitively much less immature natural resources than russia did then, russia had always lived lean and its people were tougher than we americans.

I wonder who you think is going to come to america and invest trillions in us? And who will be our Putin to throw out the oligarchs and the carpetbaggers, and reassert control over the oil and gas?

I figure an american collapse is coming, but I don't expect russia to come to our aid when it does.

First, I was not comparing the US to Russia or the situations to each other. I've stated that a few times now.

Who will invest in the US?

This is exactly my point. Everyone in the world with money to invest. Money flowed into Russia because of the opportunity to invest in a emerging market. What you are ignoring or forgetting is that people continued to invest in Russia after the collapse in the absolute worst of circumstances. A failed currency (and where law requires you to do transactions in that currency). A tax system that made no sense. No property rights. A nonsensical body of laws. No working legal system. No shareholders rights. No functioning banking system and so on. The entire country was broken from top to bottom and ran by hardcore criminals. That did not slow down investment. People and money follow opportunity. The USA has none of the obstacles to investment that Russia did.

To ask "who will invest in the USA" is the same as asking a question like "who would invest in the worlds largest market for consumer products" - the answer to a question like that is quite simple... everyone across the world with something to sell to consumers.

My point is simply that the market will adjust and correct very quickly and even if there was a full and complete collapse of the economy / financial system due to a default and its effects would be short lived and barely felt.
:2 cents:

Robbie,

If we don't raise the debt ceiling we default in AUGUST.
Even if we make the most massive spending cuts that anyone has recommended we would still default in AUGUST.

Spending cuts are absolutely necessay. They won't be large enough or take effect fast enough to avoid default unless we also borrow more in August.
The time to cut spending was back when we were initiating two unfunded wars and dumping a trillion dollars in Iraq.
We had a budget SURPLUS under Clinton and not only dud we fail to pay down debt with it, we increased out debt dramatically.

If you believe we must pay our obligations and live within our means (as I do), it will require cutting spending, raising taxes AND borrowing more money for a period of years not months before we are back to where we should be. We will not fix decades of broken fiscal policy with two weeks of fiscal respondibility.

On the other hand, even if you mistakenly believe everything can be fixed with spending cuts, making all the cuts needed to avoid defaulting in AUGUST would leave senior citizens, poor people, veterans and others suddenly without the money they rely on to pay their own bills. The glib answer is 'fuck em' but the reality is when they all fail to pay their bills the people who planned to collect from them now cant pay their bills and the entire economy collapses from the bottom up. Add in much higher rates on any debts and downgraded financials and you quickly have a massive depression with breadlines that will make the potato famine era feel like a walk in the park.

We need a ten year fiscal plan. Not a two week, two month or two year plan that kicks the can down th road to the next election.

What I keep repeating...is that today they will once again SPEND 10 billion dollars and bring in revenue of 5 billion.

How the hell can they defend that when we are so far in debt already? If they stopped spending
(you know...bring back the troops from Afghanistan: Bin Laden is dead,
bring back the troops from Iraq: Saddam Hussein is dead & there were no weapons of mass destruction,
stop bombing Libya: they didn't attack us,
bring the troops home from Germany and Japan: We won WW2 in the 1940's, and the list goes on and on and on) then maybe we wouldn't have to BORROW MORE MONEY to a pay for the money we already owe. :disgust

Also...I have watched several folks on CNN flat out say that the "debt ceiling" is something that we created to STOP borrowing money. But every time we hit it...it gets raised!

So my question would be...with revenue coming into the feds in August of 174 BILLION dollars, couldn't they simply STOP SPENDING twice the amount they are bringing in and instead use some of THAT money to pay the interest on the debt and NOT go into default and NOT go further into debt?

Nobody seems to be talking about the fact that if we raise the debt ceiling we are digging even deeper into debt with absolutely no way to ever pay it off. :(

That is my understanding. And yeah, I "get it" that IF we were to default it could be disastrous. But the self imposed "debt ceiling" (that has never been adhered to) and defaulting on the nations loans are two different things.

How about we simply don't spend double what we bring in everyday and instead pay the debt with the revenue that is already coming in? But to the money hungry politicians in Washington D.C. that is just crazy talk! lol

We can't keep borrowing to pay for money we borrowed. Nobody can. And those politicians can keep spinning it anyway they want...but common sense and mathematics shows that it won't work. They have to stop spending now.

We also need a world where puppies never get hit by trucks and where children never cry.

However, when you have a 4 year election cycle and an ignorant electorate that demands/expects results in months, not years - the system itself is heavily weight towards short term, feel good reactions to long term problems and there will never be long term planning.

Guys, I have to wonder about this...didn't they originally create the "debt ceiling" as a way to stop Congress from spending too much? And they have just ignored it and raised it every year for decades?

So what is to stop the next President or Congress a few years down the line from tossing a ten year plan in the garbage and just "raising" the spending levels just like they are doing with the "debt ceiling"

I don't think that Washington D.C. is going to stop until this country is completely in shambles.

EDIT: Also when the govt. is spending 303 Billion dollars per month...how is "cutting" a couple of hundred billion per year going to do anything to get us OUT of debt? Shouldn't we be cutting about 4 trillion right NOW?
I'm just doing the math here...

It's only about screwing over Obama. An amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget would take years to pass. 2/3rds of the States have to ratify it. So making it sound like it is the cure of all our ills is BS. The Republicans could not give a rats ass about submitting a budget that requires no deficit. They asked Bachman who is railing like hell about not raising the debt ceiling. When asked if she would submit a budget that would not exceed the debt limit and agree to submit only balanced budgets she hemmed and hawed and then said she would try. It's all part of the plan to make sure Obama is a one term President. Mitch McConnell, the GOP's head dude in the Senate has said as much. He said their number one priority is to make Obama fail. So to hell with the Country as long as the GOP wins. Sorry state of affairs if you ask me. :2 cents:

another thing to add in to this equation is the crumbling infrastructure. 60 year old shit that was built with an engineered lifespan of ~50 years.

cost to bring everything to 2011 standards: $20 trillion


i happen to think this is our only way out and was beyond surprised to see how few tarp resources were put to this in 2008+. but a new energy breakthrough and a new deal sort of government would stave off a meltdown, although i do agree with thesquealer, we would all adjust to life after.

Cut the taxes that will bring the jobs back!
Wait ge paid no taxes 2010
And now they are moving their radiology headquarters from america to china
Hmmmmm

So raising taxes will change that? That's the part that always gets left out.

If companies are already finding the U.S. too expensive to produce things in...then how is raising the cost of business even further going to convince them to stay?

Hmmm... whats the number one area of the medical business for lawsuits.. omg!! radiology. Maybe there is a good reason for moving that part of the business out of the most litigious nation on the planet.

You can't lower their taxes any lower than zero :1orglaugh

And you can't get much in the way of revenue from a population of paper hat workers.

So what do we do? Yank Social Security out from under the old people and then get rid of their medicare?

Without the healthy tax revenue (income, sales, real estate and so on) provided by people with decent jobs this country is fucked.

It's as simple as that.

The smart thing would be to make it more, not less, expensive for them to outsource and they'd come running back like lost puppies.

GregE what measures can we take to make it "more expensive" for them to outsource? It's still a "free" country (not really) so we can't force them to do things that are not in their own best interest. The only thing we can do is repeal NAFTA and close everything down with high tariffs...correct? If we do that...then not only does the average person have no money, a mortgage that's underwater, and maybe no job...but now he has everything go up in price on him.

The only reason that any companies don't pay tax (which isn't completely true because they pay matching Social Security taxes on every employee so the U.S. govt. double dips like the thieves they are), is because our scumbag politicians are ALL on the take (dems and repubs) and refuse to fix the tax structure.

You could "raise" all of their taxes and they still WILL NOT pay any. What needs to happen is to get rid of the gigantic tax laws and just hit a flat tax all the way across the board. NOTHING is an exemption. NOTHING can be written off. Just 15% for everybody and that would increase tax revenue.

But it STILL won't meet the amounts that Congress is spending. They could take 100% of everybodies money and still not do that. 10 Billion dollars a day!!!! It must be nice to spend other people's money and money that doesn't exist.

Robbie,

'Enough cuts' to pay our obligations without borrowing a penny in August would create catastrophic problems.
The larger the entity the slower it changes direction. Making significant changes is absolutely necessary.
Those changes would take years to phase into effect without severly damaging the economy.

There is a huge difference between saying you have to be 78 years old to collect social security starting in 2015 versus saying you have to be 78 to collect starting next Wednesday and if you have already been collecting but are not yet 78 you will no longer be sent a check.

also, this debt limit issue is due to a $500 billion interest payment due in august.

I know that they will move at a snails pace. Not only is it difficult to move a gigantic bureaucracy...but it behooves them to move slow so they can keep raping us financially as well.

BUT...I was saying that with 174 BILLION dollars forecast in revenue for the month of August we do NOT have to default on the money we borrowed. Isn't that what the gloom and doom forecast is all about?

The problem is that they are going to spend 303 BILLION in August. Yes, I know we have to meet our obligations (entitlements and military)...but couldn't they just at least PRETEND to slow down and immediately stop spending on everything else? And at least begin the process of bringing home ALL of our troops from overseas and stop being the world's policeman?

Yeah, I know they can't do that in a few days...but they aren't even CONSIDERING it for the future. They are making a teeny-tiny budget "cut" (that isn't even a real cut...just a "slowdown" in future spending) spread out over ten years and then they are going to raise the imaginary "Debt Ceiling" that they never adhere to and then the news will drop this subject and move on to something else.

Just like healthcare was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD for a couple of months, then Mexicans coming into the U.S. was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD for a couple of months, now this b.s. is.

And next week...it'll be Charlie Sheen or something else stupid. Meanwhile Boehner, Reid, and Obama will all be laughing all the way to the bank and marveling at how easy it is to keep the general population (us) distracted.

David Copperfield and other magicians could learn a thing or two from our politicians about sleight of hand.

Is that the yearly interest payment? My God...we are fucked. :(

The biggest companies don't make that much in total revenue in a year! Much less could we tax them all to the ground.

I'm not thinking about the oil companies though...how much does one of them make? Maybe it's time to declare oil a matter of national defense and nationalize them to finance the govt.

6% fixed interest on 14 trillion. You do the math.

you know, i tried to look into that when i came across this info, i was curious too, but i couldn't find the exact schedule on this balloon payment. i got the impression it comes due more often than 1x year though.

the Bipartisan Policy Center titled ?Debt Limit Analysis? reminds us, aside from the actual deficit funding math, which is that in August there is a $134.3 billion cash shortfall that has to be funded with debt, there is a far greater risk. Or, put numerically, 467.4 billion far greater risks. This is the amount of debt that matures through August 31, and has to be rolled over or the US is bankrupt? in every sense of the word. Once again, America?s politicians and media get broadsided by the definition of gross versus net. Because, in reality, the inability to issue more debt post August 3 means a halt to all new debt issuance. Which, unfortunately because it means Geithner?s scaremongering is actually correct, would imply the end for the debt ponzi.

Below is the maturity schedule in August from the BPC:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...draghi/BPS.jpg


And their commentary, which recaps what we said 14 months ago:

Treasury must ?roll over? almost $500 b in debt that matures during August 2011
New debt is issued and the proceeds are used to repay the maturing debt plus interest due
Treasury will require market access throughout August to avoid defaulting on maturing debt
About $380 b in short-term T-Bills maturing, plus $90 b in long-term securities
Quarterly refunding auction on August 15
And that?s not it. On a Net basis, there is in addition another $134.3 billion in deficit that must be satisfied somehow. Alas, after August 3rd it will become impossible to plunder savings accounts going forward which means a game over in the kick the can down the road game:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...ding%207.1.jpg

Breaking down the spending side:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...ding%207.1.jpg

The BPC?s observations on what happens on August 4 absent a deal are rather spot on:

If the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2, all three ratings agencies will put the United States on watch for a downgrade, at a minimum. Fitch (6/8/11):
?If the debt ceiling is not raised by the [X Date] and timely and full payment of its obligations, including Treasuries, is not secure, the U.S. sovereign rating will be placed on Rating Watch Negative.?
An actual downgrade would cause major losses among holders
Even without downgrade, it is likely that rates would increase, perhaps significantly
Less likely, but possible, that Treasury would lose market access during such an unprecedented event and default
As a reminder we are now 32 days away from D-Day, and about 60 days from the need to fund half a trillion, all of it with new gross debt issuance.

To date, there has been no progress in D.C. at all. Will there be progress in the next 4 weeks? They better, or as demonstrated, the extend and pretend game, contrary to the well-meaning intentions of the likes of Drucknemiller, is about to come to a very violent end.

The commentators (I can't call anybody on Fox or CNN "news anchors" anymore) on CNN are reporting that Standard & Poor's are probably going to lower the U.S. from the AAA rating anyway.

They are saying that unless the U.S. shows a REAL plan to address the deficit (including no more deficit spending every day) that they are going to lower it whether the imaginary "debt ceiling" is raised or not. :(

The U.S. has been AAA since this was started in 1917. We were AAA all through WW1, The Great Depression, and WW2.
But we are so far in debt now that it doesn't appear likely we can service this much debt no matter WHAT we do.

And yet...Washington just keeps spending right now as I'm typing. You'd think at the very LEAST they would shut shit down while they carried on with this masquerade...but no: Somewhere a "bridge to nowhere" is being built, a 1.2 million dollar missile is killing some Arabs in Libya, and soldiers around the world are riding in tanks, and jets, and humvees burning a billion dollars worth of fuel (and for you liberals: destroying the environment). :(

ron paul 2012