patrick.net

regarding stout files:

War reduces the surface population, it gets rid of debts as well.

corntrollio says

Assuming Congress lets it happen. Even dropping to $625K is an abomination. It should be dropped back to $417K or lower.

Your so right about that... even lower! Inflating home prices helps no one!

Troy says

StoutFiles says

If everyone would stop picking sides they’d realize that both parties are awful, and we shouldn’t even have them.

the parties represent the emotional and intellectual make-up of their mainstream supporters.
It is not the parties that are fucked, it is us.
“Nessuna soluzione . . . nessun problema!„

noone supports fraud and stealing. That is pure influence of special interest money to buy legislative graces.

"Geithner said back in March that doom was imminent and he was lying, so now no one cares, he cried wolf."

You clearly do not understand how the debt ceiling works. The US has already hit its debt ceiling and has only avoided defauly through the use of accounting gimmicks, like not making contributions to employee pensions and not holding certain auctions. However these measure sare TEMPORARY and can't go on forever. Geithner was also able to push the date back a few months due to higher than expected tax revenue. You see, tax revenue is very unpredictabel and before April 15th, few peopel know what it will be.

I don't think it will be a disaster. For sure, treasuries will fall thru the floor and all bonds as well. Stock market will go down. Interest rates - sharply up.

Credit will become nearly unavailable. In short, it means Deflation.

We, the U.S., DO make enough to pay our debts, about 2.4 TRILLION a year. PLenty enough to pay our bonds. What we don't have enough for is all the programs that favor this group and that group. Both parties have them. Power needs to and will be, devolved from Washington. That is ELIMINATE most of the programs and we will SAVE OUR COUNTRY. The private sector charities will fill-in where need is critical, they always have throughout history and only in the last 70 years do we believe the preposterous notion that government should take care of all our needs.
DON'T ELIMINATE them, hold out for the bitter end, go WAY further into debt, and we probably don't survive as a country. We likely break into a smaller nation much like the Soviet Union did, or at least be beholden to numerous foreign interests who are stronger.
So I say to the Patriotic Republicans STAND YOUR GROUND. Pay our debts with the tax money you ALREADY take in and roll back the spending. It's our ONLY chance.

Why is everyone blaming Republicans? Democrats are TRYING to pin this on Repubs so they can spend at foolish, lavish and spendthrift ways. If we raise the debt ceiling, when the bond markets DO wake up they will raise the yie
ld so high, we the U.S., will not be able to pay the debt and the economy will be so tight, making money( to pay taxes,live life, etc.) will be difficult.

This is like GM before it went bankrupt. At first there was "NO WAY" we could let them go bankrupt. After a another month or two(and after a corrupt payoff to the unions) it suddenly became OK, and they went through bankruptcy.

"That is ELIMINATE most of the programs and we will SAVE OUR COUNTRY. The private sector charities will fill-in where need is critical,"

So you want to replace Social Security and Medicare with charity? Ok, yet another crazy idea.

The odd thing is that much of the debt comes from the wars. So when the democrats had control of congress under bush they continued them..and for a whole year under obama they continued it as well.

The left could have removed funding the wars but they didn't..why not? Political suicide maybe...but they could have at least said they would stick to things.

Obama won the primary because he could say iraq was a mistake and won against hillary..then we watched as palin and mccain tripped over their own feet.

Even if we let the bush tax cuts expire, ended the exemption on social security and let obama care sit we would STILL have significant debt.

We've never cut government on the federal scale that much. We have to mortgage the future on the basis of what we borrow.

darrellsimon says

yup, last time around we needed a war to bail us out…

The war of 1979? I must have missed that.

and in a srange coincidence Europe having similar problems has, along with the good ole us ofa, decided to destabilize the middle east by attacking (with propoganda and with actual force) sovergn nations in that area.

Did the U.S. start the Arab protests? That's what the dictators there would like you to believe. More pro-U.S. Arab regimes are threatened by popular uprising than are anti-U.S. regimes. I doubt from the tone of your comments you really give a shit about the people's suffering there right now.

I would definitely say a war is next

War would not help our situation. It is part of what drove us to this point. History, economics, it's all inconvenient when trying to keep one's conspiracy theories afloat.

"So you want to replace Social Security and Medicare with charity? Ok, yet another crazy idea."

Both programs came from Ottovon Bismarks ideas in the 1880's for two major reasons

1) to deter the spread of red scares and communism. Sometimes the best thing to do is compromise to lower the argument

2) provide an incentive

This is where the whole "..at age 65" came in. When Bismark made the programs life expectancy was 45..meaning most would not live to collect these. When FDR created SS the life expectancy was 62..which again meant most would be dead.

LBJ passed medicare but in retrospect this occurred after the civil rights act. In a sense it was probably created to establish more unity on the left than anything else..of course it didn't really help given the chaos of the '68 convention..

There's never been a single generation that has allowed an entire generation of people to stop working and start collecting from the state en masse. If someone makes the case for Europe well their military was subsidized by the US and even then as we watch the whole PIIGS start to fall apart it could be on the chopping block.

As people age they need more health care. As a generation ages this becomes even more obvious. If there are mandates it will create lines (as what is happening in mass)

mdovell says

When FDR created SS the life expectancy was 62..which again meant most would be dead.

This is a very common piece of mis- or disinformation found among people who don't know anything about anything (i.e. conservatives).

In 1940, survival rate from age 21 to 65 was over 50% for men and 60.6% for women.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

In a sense it was probably created to establish more unity on the left

And also, funny enough, Medicare was established to make it possible for the elderly to get the health care they needed. Obviously this isn't on any conservative's radar.

The expansion of the economy and rise of productivity has made it possible for working people to support retired people. Retired people really don't need much, some food, some TV.

If there are mandates it will create lines

Good. Health is wealth. Health care should be a human right, and conservatives who disagree with this are defective people.

mdovell says

The left could have removed funding the wars but they didn’t..why not? Political suicide maybe…but they could have at least said they would stick to things.

"The left" wasn't running things in 2009-2010. Pelosi is a centrist, and the Dem Senate caucus was/is not "left" at all. And Obama has to win Colorado and Virginia, so even if he were a secret Marxist he still has to pander to middle America.

timh says

If we raise the debt ceiling, when the bond markets DO wake up they will raise the yie
ld so high, we the U.S., will not be able to pay the debt and the economy will be so tight, making money( to pay taxes,live life, etc.) will be difficult.

Screw the "bond markets". If we were smart we would just raise taxes and print. Any dollar borrowed should have been a dollar taxed.

The central problem facing our economy is the trade deficits pulling hundreds of billions out of the economy every year.

Plus wasteful spending on defense and healthcare that is not providing enough bang for the buck.

Troy says

Pelosi is a centrist

Ever wonder why nobody takes you seriously?

klarek says

Ever wonder why nobody takes you seriously?

The conservative clowns on this board, I could really care less. I have yet to see one intelligent thing posted from any of them.

As for Pelosi, she is not a leftist. It's your cramped & overly ideological understanding of the world that is defective, not mine.

klarek says

Ever wonder why nobody takes you seriously?

I thought Troy was taken more seriously than just about anyone on this forum.

Nobody is perfect.

Maybe it's Troy's constant reference to facts that bothers you.

In Klarek's defense, if you listen to right wing propaganda all day, then your frame of reference would get more than a little out of whack, losing all ability to know where the center is (or where it used to be).

marcus says

klarek says

Ever wonder why nobody takes you seriously?

I thought Troy was taken more seriously than just about anyone on this forum.
Nobody is perfect.
Maybe it’s Troy’s constant reference to facts that bothers you.

You think ideology = facts. That's cute. Keep licking Troy's balls.

Troy says

The conservative clowns on this board, I could really care less. I have yet to see one intelligent thing posted from any of them.

You're a partisan clown. You'll never think anything anybody says is intelligent unless it conforms with your own beliefs. You're very close-minded.

Troy says

As for Pelosi, she is not a leftist. It’s your cramped & overly ideological understanding of the world that is defective, not mine.

Just because she's corrupt and incompetent doesn't mean she's not a leftist. If you want to paint her as a leftist, go for it. Please explain.

It's an interesting question, with us all having or biases, how do we know where the center is?

A decent argument can be made that Troy is wrong, that is that in the past 30 years we have moved so far to the right, that what was and should be the center is now the left. Why? Because the super rich and the corporations own our government.

For example if you think that having income (just the part that is) over 300K taxed at 39% is radical left wing, then hey maybe you are right.

But again, I do like the question. What or where is the center ?

Maybe the path back to greatness for America is having more poor and less middle class. How are we supposed to compete with Asia and India when our workers are paid too well? I can see how becoming basically third world country would be good for global corporations.

Except for the problem of "demand."

Oh, and also that nasty little "government by the people and for the people."

Where is the center?

Would publicly financed elections be dangerous? If so, for whom? Are publicly financed elections a radical left wing idea? Where is the center?

marcus says

It’s an interesting question, with us all having or biases, how do we know where the center is?

Generally, the lexicon for defining such a thing would be the current U.S. political makeup and/or climate. That's why when a smug ideologue like Troy tries to redefine the center, the left, or even the right (without the courtesy of providing a framework to his loony world), it is cheapening the discussion.

marcus says

A decent argument can be made that Troy is wrong, that is that in the past 30 years we have moved so far to the right, that what was and should be the center is now the left. Why? Because the super rich and the corporations own our government.

Have we? The religious right is dying. Social liberalism is in its hey day. Yes, the wealthy have their tax cuts, but they aren't going to have them forever. They can't. It only benefits ideological freaks like Troy for them to make off like bandits, so he can frame everything from that point of origin.

marcus says

It’s an interesting question, with us all having or biases, how do we know where the center is?
A decent argument can be made that Troy is wrong, that is that in the past 30 years we have moved so far to the right, that what was and should be the center is now the left. Why? Because the super rich and the corporations own our government.
For example if you think that having income (just the part that is) over 300K taxed at 39% is radical left wing, then hey maybe you are right.
But again, I do like the question. What or where is the center ?

It's not that Troy is wrong, it's that he is framing the general "center" from where Castro or Marx would have it. To put it kindly, that is very preachy.

klarek says

You’re a partisan clown. You’ll never think anything anybody says is intelligent unless it conforms with your own beliefs. You’re very close-minded.

I actually detest the Dems, but they are the best the US system can vend right now. In my personal ideology I am a left-libertarian, which most closely matches the Norwegian and Swedish economic systems I guess. They're miles more left than Pelosi, as is Western Europe, the part not exposed to the abuses of Soviet Communism.

Conservatives are just utterly 'round the bend right now. Their Creationism, Christianism, absolute dismissal of anthropogenic global warming theory, belief in "voodoo economics", mindless support of "deregulation", gay-hate, etc etc. There's not a single intelligent thing conservatives -- cultural or fiscal -- bring to the table. Just look at the clown car that is the current Republican presidential field. Huntsman would be my guy, but he's being forced to walk back his previous non-insane policy positions.

The major problems this nation faces is a dollar that is too strong against our major trading partners, and the growing cost of energy, which will continue to squeeze us as peak oil meets growing global demand.

And a military that is totally out of control. Ron Paul is the only voice of reason here, alas, but he's far from the conservative mainstream on this.

Conservatives have zero answers to what faces this country in the 21st century. They are irrelevant.

Troy says

Conservatives are just utterly ’round the bend right now. Their Creationism, Christianism, absolute dismissal of anthropogenic global warming theory, belief in “voodoo economics”, mindless support of “deregulation”, gay-hate, etc etc.

I don't disagree with anything you're saying here. I just choked on my oatmeal when you said Pelosi was a centrist. Maybe you're conflating establishment Republicanism with conservatism?

If you agree (or don't disagree), then what kind of negotiating stance would you expect from a centrist democrat leader?

klarek says

I just choked on my oatmeal when you said Pelosi was a centrist.

Compared to Bernie Sanders, Kucinich, and Jesse Jackson Jr, she is. She's no leftist if the term has any meaning any more. Maybe it doesn't.

Maybe you’re conflating establishment Republicanism with conservatism?

What's the difference? Conservatism -- Murdoch, National Review, AEI, Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, etc etc -- not a damn bit of difference where the rubber meets the road. Gingrich had the temerity to slag on Ryan's medicare "reform" -- and look where that bit of honesty got him.

Cato is more doctrinaire libertarian but they're being herded into the conservative money system too now.

klarek says

it’s that he is framing the general “center” from where Castro or Marx would have it. To put it kindly, that is very preachy.

Or accurate. Marx, Castro would be "far left". Sweden, Norway, would be "left". European conservatives would be centrist, as would "liberal" Democrats like Pelosi. Then we get to the right side of the spectrum which, since dinner is soon and I want to keep my appetite, I won't go into here.

mdovell says

Sorry I thought I had put the post in this text. The post I am responding too along with a few others, is the sentiment that war is not useful and therefore we should not suspect our country,Nato, and other power elite groups that influence policy, of destabilizing the Middle East.

Very naive. Justg one day out of the blue 3 Arab countries decided to destabilize.... or, yeah they saw the success of Tunisia and had to get sum a dat pie. And Nato? just trying to be a good neighbor to all of those democracy seekers.

Look. There are regimes in the Middle East, like the Saudis for example, that have cultivated a culture that attacks this country. These regimes would fall in a day but are protected by the same powers that decide suddenly that Quadafi has to go, etc.

War and destabilization makes a situation where we, Americans, are suseptable to being asked to compromise our freedoms...like the Patriot act after 9-11. This government, in the midst of a war can ask people to suspend fundamental liberties and can look like they are solving the problems while enslaving people. That is why the Middle East is being destabilized and why in bizarro fashion France (America junior under that bastard Sarcozy) is advocating attacking sovereign nations and NATO is all too happy to drop bombs on a sovereign nation.

If these developments do not tell y0u something about war and why it is useful then one's head should go back in the sand and maybe the nproblems will just go away.

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StoutFiles says

bob2356 says

That’s odd, I seem to remember a Republican president being in office in 20 of the last 30 years that the debt has been run up. Is my memory faulty?

Why do people argue about this stuff? If everyone would stop picking sides they’d realize that both parties are awful, and we shouldn’t even have them.

That was my point, both parties have been culpable.

bob2356 says

both parties have been culpable

No, one party voted to raise taxes in 1993. It cost them dearly in 1994, but it was the right thing to do.

But after 1994 they're not going to make *that* mistake again.

"Health care should be a human right, and conservatives who disagree with this are defective people."

Ok but let's think legally here. All rights have to be within the Constitution.

So just for theoretical discussion if it was an amendment and added how would it work?

Since medical care contingent on medical staff meeting patients how can the public say they have the right to someone elses labor?

Does anyone have the right to police, fire and EMS? They don't. Technically although all are public services nothing prevents businesses from competing.

Rights cannot be take away from people. But rights as far as what we have written down are not about immediate services. You have the right to a fair trial..but that does not mean that it will be immediate and that the court system and serve everyone at once.

The last time the country thought that certain people had a right to another persons labor it was under slavery.

If we enacted single payer or socialized health care or which ever term you may like and doctors do not wish to go along with it then what? Would doctors be drafted like the military was? Would you still allow for private practices to occur? They are legal in the UK but illegal in Canada (although the Quebec case opens it in that area).

BTW I have to ask is that single tax referring to Geoism?

Ok but let’s think legally here. All rights have to be within the Constitution.

Agreed!

So just for theoretical discussion if it was an amendment and added how would it work?

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Would you still allow for private practices to occur? They are legal in the UK but illegal in Canada (although the Quebec case opens it in that area).

Private practice is not totally outlawed in Canada. One approach is to allow service providers to choose whether they wish to be in the single-payer system or out of it -- if they take any insurance patients they can not bill anyone but the state.

I think this is the right approach to preserve freedom and boutique providers in the system.

BTW I have to ask is that single tax referring to Geoism?

Related, yes. I'd like to think taxing land and its natural resources would be enough to establish a geolibertarian regime superior to eg. Sweden or Norway. But I doubt it would work so well in practice.

In terms of left and right it is important to remember up and down as well. There's a good test here to see where people are
http://www.politicalcompass.org

Not everything is the way we think it is.

If I were to tell you about a state that has a open secession movement, the most lax gun laws of the country, is the whitest state in the country and has people complain about weak border security you might be picturing some state down south but that is actually Vermont! (vermont was a country for 11 years and some want a 2nd republic, any handgun control organization will avouch for its laws, there are areas in the northern area with no border crossings etc)

If I use another case that has the most generous social welfare package in the country, that the wealth that surrounds it is actually owned by the state government and largest employer is healthcare you might be picturing Massachusetts but that is actually Alaska (oil dividend, state owns the rights of the oil and Providence Health Systems last I checked is the largest employer)

Now Sarah Palin will never say these things about Alaska and Howard Dean certainly won't about Vermont (or that he cut taxes and spending either)

What some say and do are two different things. There is also a difference between pandering to a primary base, to a general election and then while in office. In addition not everyone that supports various parties sees issues eye to eye. The religious right is against same sex marriage but they probably have no issues with socialized medicine. Meanwhile there can be unions that can be against cap and trade because they fear their own jobs.

If we want to change things politically I'd recommend the following(these are not my ideas but from others)
1) Change the presidency to one term of six years. That way there's no distractions of a reelection
2) Consolidate primaries to about two months. None of this 6-7 month long slog. Make the primaries regional and on a weekly basis starting with the lowest populated areas to the highest. Six or so states at a time should wrap it up
3)Expand the number of representatives by 100. It will dillute power..but I'd also say expand the term from two years to three. Any freshman representative is going to spend the first year learning the ropes and then the second year running for reelection..hardly anything is going to be accomplished (for either party)

We might not like parties but it gives at least somewhat of a indication in terms of how a given person might act towards an issue. In Brazil they have no real strong parties. When the president is elected there is no base to serve or expectations to do anything. As a result no one knows what to expect. At least in western countries there's a tendency of a predictable left and right swing.

"Would you still allow for private practices to occur? They are legal in the UK but illegal in Canada"

You have it in reverse. In the UK, all doctors are employed by the National Health Service. There is no private practice.

Troy says

klarek says

it’s that he is framing the general “center” from where Castro or Marx would have it. To put it kindly, that is very preachy.

Or accurate. Marx, Castro would be "far left". Sweden, Norway, would be "left". European conservatives would be centrist, as would "liberal" Democrats like Pelosi. Then we get to the right side of the spectrum which, since dinner is soon and I want to keep my appetite, I won't go into here.

“Nessuna soluzione . . . nessun problema!„

I wouldn't even include Castro or other dictatorial regimes as "Left" or "liberal". I'd say post-revolution, the leftists are often left wondering how the dictatorship of the proletariat stopped at "dictatorship". Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

That said, Pelosi is not a far-left anything, unless you define America as far-left, corporatism as far-left, a lack of infrastructure and social services as far-left, laissez-faire as far-left.

And by any metric, our leaders never pursue real liberal policies in the modern age.

HousingWatcher says

"Would you still allow for private practices to occur? They are legal in the UK but illegal in Canada"
You have it in reverse. In the UK, all doctors are employed by the National Health Service. There is no private practice.

You are splitting hairs here. Doctors in the UK can have public and private patients. I don't know if they are required to do at least some work in the public system or not. But they can certainly have private practices. Don't believe me, here is one of websites listing private docs in the UK.
http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/
I'm not sure why the NIH is the whipping boy of bad socialist medicine. They consistently get something like 90% satisfaction on surveys.

shrekgrinch says

Troy says

Pelosi is a centrist

That's gotta be the funniest thing you've ever said, Troy.
'centrist' my ass.

Not a centrist by a long shot...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_8th_congressional_district

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first-time-majority-americans-favor-legal-gay-marriage.aspx

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/43190/majorities-of-americans-and-britons-believe-the-war-in-iraq-was-a-mistake/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902451.html

um yeah. I could do this all day.

klarek says

That's why when a smug ideologue like Troy tries to redefine the center, the left, or even the right (without the courtesy of providing a framework to his loony world), it is cheapening the discussion.

The problem is that Troy isn't redefining anything. Most people don't understand the political spectrum has two axes. If you look at the Political Compass link that mdovell sent, you will see that the mainstream Democratic party is right of center in the U.S. and the mainstream Republican party is farther right of center in the U.S. Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans aren't actually "centrist." Our overall spectrum in the U.S. is quite narrow here in both directions.

We don't have a serious "left" party here as other countries do -- look at the typical "Green" party in some of listed countries. What we also don't really have is the top-left and bottom-right quadrants -- examples of these can be seen on the UK link. Mike Gravel was the only bottom-right candidate in the U.S. (http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008) -- technically he is right of most of the Republicans economically, but far more libertarian (and believes in things like universal healthcare and carbon taxes, but also a national sales tax to eliminate the IRS).

What's also funny is that Ron Paul actually doesn't fall bottom of center into libertarianism.

mdovell says

The odd thing is that much of the debt comes from the wars.

This well-known, although the Bush tax cuts created more of it:

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/what%E2%80%99s-driving-projected-debt/

We were on quite a good trajectory after the Clinton years, but it everything was screwed up quite royally afterward with the obsession over tax cuts even though our taxes are quite low overall.

@Troy

Thanks for the links... I am amazed at how much anger has been directed away from the Iraq "campaign" and into more trivial things.

Darn the NPR for putting the US in so much debt.