patrick.net

Nomograph says

TRANSLATION: I'm desperately hoping that everyone will leave the BA so I can get a house for cheap.
HINT: Not gonna happen.

Has happened many times, 1950s 1970s and again in 1990s, and repeating once again.

The "1/2 of the public" surprisingly for some ConservoBots here, doesn't to me consist entirely of shiftless brown people.

Some of my relatives are lily-white Fox News addicts who have no savings and are hip-deep in houses in which they currently have little or no equity. I tried to talk some sense into them years ago to no avail. On my last trip East I had to listen to people complaining about ObamaCare and out-of-control taxes, who have serious medical conditions and have been through bankruptcy and depend on various government programs.

HydroCabron says

At $8/gallon gasoline there will be a re-think, with many young people moving to downtown outdoor non-luxury condos with open heat vents.

The city can be really disgusting, but it's hard to see how the 'burbs will do well if it's so expensive to get to a job. Rural areas, on the other hand, will see a rebirth, as young people flock to the new growth sector of the job market: manual agricultural labor.

suburbias always have all the traffic going toward the city because there are no jobs locally. I do think cities will grow more.

What's your point GAWD?!?

Can you explain your self posting on an internet forum?

Love
Ellie

Tenouncetrout says

What's your point GAWD?!?

Can you explain your self posting on an internet forum?

Love
Ellie

He likes me! Right now, he really LIKES me!

"Nobody has 'savings' in the this country"

The $2.7T in treasuries are just as real an obligation to future taxpayers as the $50B the Alaskan permanent fund holds and the ~$1T the Chinese have bought.

This money was literally taken from baby boomer and Gen X wage-earners, 1984-2010 to cover their retirements.

That's what savings is. To hand-wave it away now will be theft of $1.5T + accrued interest.

The overall structure of social security can be considered savings, too. Savings is putting something aside that you get back later. That's how social security works. To the extent future benefits exceed current contributions, the contributions should be raised so the fund is in actuarial balance (with the surplus going into Treasury bonds as they have been).

Unless you are advocating that he went on TV to confess that he'd be breaking the law in doing so?

Your cite says:

"By law the Treasury is bound to redeem any bonds presented to it by the Social Security Administration"

It's the administration's decision when to cash the bonds held by SSA. By the 14th Amendment, it would appear that any bonds SSA presents to Treasury for redemption must be paid.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/transactions.html

If possible, cashing out the bonds would be one way to get grandma out of the crossfire, but this does not solve the actual fiscal disaster that the Federal government is going to hit.

Are you?

No. Obama and Geithner are not required to present the SSA bonds for early redemption. It's up to them how they juggle the checks the Congress no longer wants to write.

"I think at least Obama realizes this despite how most on patrick.net continually refuse to acknowledge this fundamental truth of our political system."

Keep telling yourself Shrekkie, and your party will find itself so out of power you're gonna think it's the 1960s again.

shrekgrinch says

Will you two just get a room, already?

I haven't smoked for many moons, and I'm having trouble understanding him. Can anyone help translate?

Case 1: Deflation
To counter deflation Bernake will continue printing
which is positive for Gold.

Case 2: Inflation
In this case also Gold will rise.

The only case where Gold will fall back to 1200, 1000, 800 or 600 is if Governments globally try to reduce their debt which I don't see happening.
Politicians always prefer inflation to deflation.

With gold it is not possible to calculate a PE ratio unlike stocks and real estate.So it is very difficult to tell the correct price to pay
It is a store of value for a long long time and

e.g. In India and China for e.g. both Gold and Real estate (on the avg) has gone up 5 times starting 2002/2003 due to inflation.

http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/07/23/dont-get-caught-holding-dollars-when-the-u-s-default-arrives/

Disclosure : I am long Gold based on the above arguments.If you can convince me to hold any other asset now let me know.

But then Geitner can't quit, he wants to do this deal then Ditch his post.

Organizations that act like they're on Top of the World, Top of Their Game, brash enough to take on Big Showy Initiatives like Communist China hosting the Olympics, or Apple erecting a showpiece HQ on some of the most expensive land in California, sound like they've reached their peak and so the only way to go from here is in decline.

I will never forget the broadcast I heard a decade ago on NPR, about how we had achieved a new era of Pax Americana, an Era of The American Empire.

Eerily, the date of the broadcast was September 10, 2001.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1128633

Thomas Donnelly
* Deputy Executive Director, Project for the New American Century

Joseph Nye

Victor Davis Hanson
*Author of several books most recently, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (Doubleday, 2001)
*Professor of Greek, California State University, Fresno

The Unites States has military forces in many countries around the world. And despite promises to cut back on military commitments, President Bush has decided to maintain the U.S. force in countries like the Balkans. Is it time to abandon euphemisms and hail the establishment of the American Empire?

these people make nuts look sane

What are you going to do with all that money you'll gain?

People always wants their money to work for them, so I'm assuming that you're not going to stash your cash between your mattresses or rest it in the bank where it earns less interest than inflation.

When the economy was doing well people placed their money in housing. When housing started to turn they cashed out and placed it into the stock market. When the stock market crashed, they placed it in gold. People always needs a sure thing to place their money in.

I'll tell you where I'll place my money if it lands on my lap... Apple.

(LOL...you know I'm joking right :-) ... the best of luck with your ventures)

pseudosea7 says

When the economy was doing well people placed their money in housing.

Thats worse than putting it under the mattress.

shrekgrinch says

Which of you have I called names on this thread?

You called Obama names. You occasionally call other people names on other threads. You constantly make statements about Democrats and liberals, as if those are unified groups or as if you know what "liberal" even means.

From my limited experience of your posts on Patrick.net, you can't even make an argument without trying to put labels on people. If you made an argument that was a good argument, rather than trying to label people, I could take you more seriously.

shrekgrinch says

So, do you have anything to contribute to that position? Anything to add? Any alternative analysis or can you find anything factually/logically weak in my points? If so, please respond.

You have never really done any analysis. You just give talking points as fact. What is there to analyze? Even in this article, you didn't analyze anything -- you just repeated someone else's (poorly written) analysis (based on conjecture). That's not independent thought.

In addition, you imply above that Obamacare will result in increased costs, yet you probably can't even tell us which provisions and how. You're just going on talking points. Explain the specific mechanism, since you understand it so well -- resting on knowing the words "individual mandate" doesn't show you know anything. What is wrong with an individual mandate and why would it raise costs?

Tenouncetrout says

Nobody does, that's the POINT!

Have you read the law? You should have been able to read it by now, even if you read at a third grade level. This is a talking point.

Go read it, instead of spewing uninformed crap. Saying "nobody knows what's in Obamacare" is what uninformed people said when it was up for a vote as a BS excuse. The fact that you're still saying it tells us you have no substantive things to say.

You couldn't possibly have been affected by Obamacare yet in terms of costs. It's a talking point to say that it has affected you.

Troy says

I called him on that recently -- the President being constitutionally required to submit budgets to Congress -- and he slinked away, only to repeat the lie the next day.

Yes, I quoted all of the appropriate Article in that thread, and still no response. Even above, the provision he quotes is not a constitutional argument for what he says.

corntrollio says

Tenouncetrout says

Nobody does, that's the POINT!

Have you read the law? You should have been able to read it by now, even if you read at a third grade level. This is a talking point.

Go read it, instead of spewing uninformed crap. Saying "nobody knows what's in Obamacare" is what uninformed people said when it was up for a vote as a BS excuse. The fact that you're still saying it tells us you have no substantive things to say.

You couldn't possibly have been affected by Obamacare yet in terms of costs. It's a talking point to say that it has affected you.

I know what brainwashed lemmings like you "THINK" is in it.
But the realty of the rubber to the road, has been session in the back alley with Skip the neighborhood molester and a jar of KY jelly.

Insurance premiums are up over 60% since the thing passed.
And you Dolts still talk about how it will control price and costs.
This thing will never be repealed because it makes investors and health executives stinkingly rich. They will be the Wall Street execs of post 2012 and beyond.

Just look the Florida Governor if you want a good Idea where this is headed.

Tenouncetrout says

Insurance premiums are up over 60% since the thing passed.

Yes, and if you think that's because of Obamacare, please give us whatever you are smoking. Quit it with this nonsense.

Insurance premiums ALWAYS go up in bad economies. Insurance companies take insurance premiums and invest them. When those investments are lower than their actuarial predictions, they have to raise rates. The fact that Obamacare passed at the same time gave insurance companies the ability to blame the new law. You would be hard pressed to PROVE that's what happened.

The Obama plan's individual mandate doesn't go into effect until 2014. If anything, it will cause more healthy people to have insurance because more young people will be required to get insurance, whereas, they don't have to right now. That should increase insurance companies' coffers, not decrease them.

Anyone arguing that recent healthcare changes raised their premiums in 2009, 2010, or 2011 is out of their gourd or lying. That's why this is a talking point -- i.e. something repeated by lemmings. Here are CBO's projections -- read for yourself:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10705/hr3962amendmentBoehner.pdf
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10781/11-30-Premiums.pdf

corntrollio says

Yes, and if you think that's because of Obamacare, please give us whatever you are smoking. Quit it with this nonsense.

You don't understand. If something happens, and then something else happens after, this is clearly cause and effect.

marcus says

You don't understand. If something happens, and then something else happens after, this is clearly cause and effect.

Oh okay. If causation is proximity in time, then this makes perfect sense. Carry on.

It doesn't matter if anything is true, SG, it only matters if its been said:

shrekgrinch says

What's the correction? Perry did say what he said, right? And if that is what they are reporting (Rick Perry said, "X"....), then its a fact that they are reporting Perry said 'X' that nobody can dispute.

Honestly man, I don't know why you even bother trying. What keeps you going?

I don't own a gun, don't feel the need to buy a gun, and I hope I'm never compelled to buy a gun, because I feel threatened enough to do so.

How ever, take away all of the guns, and some asshole will be blowing people up with a homemade bomb made from cat piss and rat shit.

radicals in the world assault people by throwing acid in ones face,
or cleaving them with machetes, and there's a whole slew of toxic agents found in nature.

Respect and tolerance is what the world needs more of. Though those that preach that the loudest expects the world to respect their beliefs while crapping on others, from a high horse yonder.

shrekgrinch says

Which is not how Social Security works. You are paying for transfer payments today (to today's retirees and, until recently, extra to the government to blow how it saw fit). It's PAYGO, not savings.

It's treated that way, yes, which was the reason for Al Gore's argument about a "lock box." But had we done that, we wouldn't have been able to afford the Bush tax cuts. Off balance sheet wars and other big Bush spending added insult to injury.

We are talking frame of reference here. The truth: It is an asset to those who are owed benefits, and a liability to future taxpayers. Some people are in both categories. Most are to varying degrees. If you are 64, then you have one more year of paying in to social security, and the rest of your life collecting benefits (mostly an asset for him). Maybe this year, they will have to use that 64 year olds FICA taxes, plus a little of his income taxes to cover payout to current SS recipients.

Make no mistake, the people who have paid in to social security are owed that money, and they are a huge voting block.

Not all of the Senators who signed it face re-election in 2012.

shrekgrinch says

Won't matter if the money isn't there. And, it isn't.

Right wing bs again. THere's a lot of dishonest propaganda out there about this. You see the US is sort of like a business. It uses accounting in much the same way that a business would. The US knows that it will have sizable revenues in the future, that it can use to pay its debts. Everyone believes that the US is still a reasonable credit risk. In fact that is at the heart of recent squabbles over budget cuts and the debt ceiling.

The US owes money to many investors in its debt. The social security trust fund is just one of these investors.

The treasury market still thinks treasury securities are valid assets, in fact so much so that the interest paid on these is at record low levels. So, let me get this straight, you think that all the entities holding treasury securities are holding valid assets, except the social security trust fund ?

DO you think that we will ultimately default on all of our debt ? Or just the debt we owe our seniors (which by the way gets cycled back in to our economy) ?

shrekgrinch says

marcus says

the people who have paid in to social security are owed that money

SCOTUS has ruled explicitly otherwise. Nobody is legally entitled to that money. If we went with privatization, then people would have legal rights of ownership for whatever was in their accounts.

Is it me, or is there a contradiction in here somewhere ? If we went to privatization, according to you, people would have nothing "in their accounts."

Please still answer, if you can: Do you think that we will ultimately default on all of our debt ? Or just the debt we owe our (future) seniors ?

Yeah I love watching GOTP tapdance around the MediCare and Social Security obligations. On the one hand, they BURN to "reform" it and hand everything to Wall Street to feed on. On the other, they know real reform would result in a voter revolt.

Greece got it's loans for about 6% for other European countries. Just because the debt is currently paying 15% doesn't mean Greece is paying that much.

Others might be selling off that debt at a discounting, giving the NEXT person 15%, but the % isn't increasing for Greece, simply the person who bought it has sold it for less and taken the loss themselves.

And the problem is what exactly? You are upset that you cannot sell your guns internationally?

I have not read the treaty, but from what I can tell this only applies to international trade of firearms. If you can pull text from the treaty that says otherwise please do.

You can pull my guns from my cold dead liberal hands… well actually I have more guns than hands, so I guess I could just bundle them up and have them pulled from my cold dead arms. Hmmm… then what to do about all the ammo cans…

Anyway, as much as I love guns only an idiot thinks there should be no “gun control”. The mentally ill having access to guns, hmmm… that should be controlled. How about gun vending machines, hmmm... we probably should not have those.

I am however opposed to any national registry of guns, and think that the current laws need better enforcement. For many years I was the proud owner of a CCW permit, and think that it should be an option for citizens (some citizens it does need to be “controlled”).

All that said, with the problem of US guns getting in to criminal hands in other countries (how do you think all the drug lords south of our borders arm their thugs). I think that restriction on international sales of guns is probably a good thing.

PS to Shrek. I imagine you feverishly consulting Rush, Ann, Glenn and the others, because you were just quoting their lies (I know,.. they weren't lying, they were just "pretending" to be stupid ) about Social Security.

I saw Ann Coulter on Real Time a few weeks ago, and she so much as said, social security is broke. She was referring to the fact that social security recently went to where annual outlays are greater then revenues from FICA taxes.

She called Social Security and Medicare textbook ponzi schemes.

She would like to convince the ignorant (you know who you are) that it is a ponzi scheme and will collapse as they always do. Why ? Because recognizing the truth would require major changes in our governments priorities and an increase in taxes.

leoj707 says

How about gun vending machines

Crap, now that you said it this is on the next legislative agenda in Texas.

I can't sort out the GOTP position on Rapture.

Do they believe in it? If so, then gun control doesn't matter since any day now the righteous will be swept into heaven.

I suppose the eagerness is better explained if they are itching for the Left Behind End Times and Holy Civil War with no Liberal Bag Limit. You need an armory filled to overflow with guns and Bibles for that.

Vicente says

On my last trip East I had to listen to people complaining about ObamaCare and out-of-control taxes, who have serious medical conditions and have been through bankruptcy and depend on various government programs.

The best are the grandmas, most of whom are entirely dependent on Social Security and Medicare. They are non-homeless largely because of government. Even if they own their own house, they got it through massive government subsidies into the housing market.

shrekgrinch says

Which means he fears the McConnell plan more so than the "ObamaCare for tax rises" plan.

Why is the McConnell plan good? I'm not asking why anyone supports or rejects it (or even who does), but rather a cohesive argument about why the McConnell plan makes sense and is good policy for America. Why is it better than alternatives which have been proposed, and why is it better than alternatives which have not yet been proposed? Please be specific.

shrekgrinch says

Which is not how Social Security works. You are paying for transfer payments today (to today's retirees and, until recently, extra to the government to blow how it saw fit). It's PAYGO, not savings.

shrekgrinch says

Yes, and the checks from SS are paid for from those SSA bonds that are to be redeemed...unless Obama deliberately redirects it elsewhere.

These two comments are inconsistent. You are both saying there is no savings and yet saying the SSA bonds exist. It's one or the other, not both. You are just throwing out talking points without caring whether they are mutually exclusive or not.

marcus says

I saw Ann Coulter on Real Time a few weeks ago, and she so much as said, social security is broke. She was referring to the fact that social security recently went to where annual outlays are greater then revenues from FICA taxes.

Is that actually true? My impression was that payouts exceeded amounts paid in (which might be all Coulter is saying), but that the trust was still getting bigger because of interest. Check out this report from the SSA located at http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html -- interest income on the trust still keeps the fund in balance until 2022, and then it will draw into the trust:

Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010 for the first time since 1983. The $49 billion deficit last year (excluding interest income) and $46 billion projected deficit in 2011 are in large part due to the weakened economy and to downward income adjustments that correct for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink to about $20 billion for years 2012-2014 as the economy strengthens. After 2014, cash deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Through 2022, the annual cash deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets from the General Fund of the Treasury. Because these redemptions will be less than interest earnings, trust fund balances will continue to grow. After 2022, trust fund assets will be redeemed in amounts that exceed interest earnings until trust fund reserves are exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than was projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085.

In addition, note that these are long-term projections, and even a small change in initial assumptions could have a huge change in the calculations. In addition, if small changes are made -- e.g. retirement ages are slowly bumped up, or higher FICA taxes are paid -- then this could change as well.

The other thing to note is that the payouts have exceeded amounts coming in before during recessions, but only on rare occasions. For the almost all years, payouts have been less than amounts coming in.

Is there a link anywhere to proposed plans? Republicans promised to have their plans posted online for at least 3 days before they can vote. That was a promise to American people.

MY point was that Republicans are refusing to raise the debt ceiling to pay for bills they have already passed. Basically they spent the money, now they are refusing to finance their spending. It's idiotic.

A fifth of the Congress is new and that's just the GOP members. A tenth of the Senate is new and that's just the GOP too.

Are you surprised it's difficult to whip them into voting for spending that has not been passed by Congress in over 600 days?

Once again, you demonstrate how weak your grasp of the facts is.

She called Social Security and Medicare textbook ponzi schemes.

They are. Ask their architects. They knew exactly what they were creating. They guessed that population growth would continue and the job creation would trail just behind it.

They calculated poorly.

wtfcapinv says

They are. Ask their architects.

Social Security is not a "textbook Ponzi scheme" unless you have a textbook that defines it as "anything I damn well want to call a Ponzi". GOTP only reveal what complete flipping illiterate morons they are, too lazy to pick up a book and too dishonest to back down when they are shown how they are wrong.

Ponzi has a clear definition with several specifics among them it's secretive and it's marketed as an insider investment scheme. Is Social Security a limited time offer and only because you happen to have the right friends? Does it refer to itself as a clever insider investment scheme, and say it's purchasing stamps or securities that will appreciate 500% overnight meanwhile doing nothing of the sort? Or does it say it's an INSURANCE program like it's right in the flipping name OASDI (Old Age &* Survivors Disability Insurance).

The people in my office who call it a Ponzi make it easy to identify the slow witted.

They blink like my 3-year old does when he clearly doesn't understand the explanation, then repeat "well it looks like a Ponzi to me".

Social Security has a demographics bump to which there is an easy solution, just use the GOTP Death Panels to terminate enough Baby Boomers among the elderly and infirm before they over-collect to balance it out until the bump passes. There is no new baby boom so far to cause this problem again.

wtfcapinv says

She called Social Security and Medicare textbook ponzi schemes.

They are. Ask their architects. They knew exactly what they were creating. They guessed that population growth would continue and the job creation would trail just behind it.

They calculated poorly.

That's not how this works. Social Security is a taxation system based on forced savings, not a Ponzi Scheme. For the vast majority of years, it has produced a significant surplus. You're just looking at things in hindsight. I doubt you would have said 20 years ago, that Social Security is genius because it worked quite successfully for the previous 50+ years.

When Social Security was passed, people didn't live as long, for one thing. The Baby Boomer generation is another demographic factor that has affected payouts. It is politicians' unwillingness to think about these issues that has caused any potential crisis. We could quite easily solve any issues by raising retirement ages or raising the cap on taxes slightly. It has been done before.

What really happened is that WE as the continuing persons did not properly adapt the program to our changing population. It's misguided to think that the same program can apply for 70+ years without change. You're extremely naive if you think this is a flaw in the program itself. You probably can't even explain the correlation between payments and benefits -- which is fine, because most people can't. But if you look at the economic substance, it is not in itself a Ponzi scheme by the definitions of a Ponzi scheme.

Geithner has been lying the whole time and he knows it. He's a political appointee that serves at the pleasure of the President. The President can fire him any time he wants. Ergo, Timmy's lies are adopted by the President.

If it's Dow Crash Day on August 3rd, will you and Fox Business be celebrating? Or apologizing for how completely wrong you were?