The Cliff

[arack]

But what is that going to do? Unless people stop buying treasuries, its meaningless.

And thats the real dilemma, what do people do with all their dollars? Americans buys so much stuff, especially oil, everyone gets dollars in return. If they trade them for local currency, the dollar drops and their economy tanks. So they buy treasuries, because our budget is still a better bet than Japan or Europe.

The credit rating is a real problem. If we get downgraded again and again over the next five years, global capital will take flight to other currencies. China will be on our heels with their currency real soon. Take that one to the bank.

 

[arack]

One more piece of ready for those of you that think this is just another bad economy and normal congressional budget issue. Check this out:

It Doesn't Matter | ZeroHedge

The main point of this article is:

1. It took just 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion in debt (from $15 trillion to $16 trillion).

2. the first full month of Fiscal Year 2013, the US government accumulated nearly $200 billion in new debt– 20% of the way to a fresh trillion in just 31 days.

3. It doesn’t matter how much they increase tax rates– they won’t collect any more money.

Just more food for thought.

 

[KneeDragr]

The credit rating is a real problem. If we get downgraded again and again over the next five years, global capital will take flight to other currencies. China will be on our heels with their currency real soon. Take that one to the bank.

What other currency? Even with the FED devaluing the dollar as fast as they can, nobody can find anything better to buy!

 

[BobbyG]

Guys, This bill was a sham. The CBO (Congressional Budget Office, Non Partisan and independent) stated that this bill will add $ 4 trillion to our already massive 16.5 trillion dollar debt.

Well how do you suggest the General Services Administration pay for their lavish meetings and seminars? :laughing:

It's like I said, you give me a pay increase of $650 billion and and I'll cut my spending by $50 billion...rops:

 

[Johny B]

Is China buying the world?

The automotive industry in the People's Republic of China has been the largest in the world measured by automobile unit production since 2008.[1][2][3] Since 2009 annual production of automobiles in China exceeds that of the European Union or that of the Unites States and Japan combined.
Of the automobiles produced, 44.3% were local brands (including BYD, Lifan, Chang'an (Chana), Geely, Chery, Hafei, Jianghuai (JAC), Great Wall and Roewe), and the rest were produced by joint ventures with foreign car makers such as Volkswagen, General Motors, Hyundai, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi etc. While most of the cars manufactured in China are sold within China, exports reached 814,300 units in 2011.[4] China's home market provides its automakers a solid base and Chinese economic planners hope to build globally competitive auto companies.[5]
China's automobile industry had Soviet origins mainly (plants and licensed auto design were founded in 1950s with the help of USSR) and had small volume for the first 30 years of the republic, not exceeding 100-200 thousands per year. It has developed rapidly since the early 1990s. China's annual automobile production capacity first exceeded one million in 1992. By 2000, China was producing over two million vehicles. After China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the development of the automobile market further accelerated. Between 2002 and 2007, China's national automobile market grew by an average 21 percent, or one million vehicles year-on-year. In 2006, China’s vehicle production capacity successively exceeded six, then seven million, and in 2007, China produced over eight million automobiles.[6] In 2009, China produced 13.79 million automobiles, of which 8 million were passenger cars and 3.41 million were commercial vehicles and surpassed the United States as the world's largest automobile producer by volume. In 2010, both sales and production topped 18 million units, with 13.76 million passenger cars delivered, in each case the largest by any nation in history. [7]
The number of registered cars, buses, vans, and trucks on the road in China reached 62 million in 2009, and is expected to exceed 200 million by 2020.[8] The consultancy McKinsey & Company estimates that China's car market will grow tenfold between 2005 and 2030.[9]

 

[Meticulous-Detail]

The problem is, most of us dont want what the government is spending money on.

For instance, our airpower is so far beyond anyone's, yet we are spending 50-75 billion dollars a year building the next, even more stealthy, farther seeing plane that the Generals dont even want because its too hard to fly.

Ditto for most of the social programs, that help nobody except Federal employees who are paid high 6 figure salaries to feel good about themselves. Sure there are some that work, but internal studies have shown that 70% of them do absolutely nothing to help the people they were intended to help.

Anyone with a solid background in business could clean up the entire mess pretty quickly, laying off Feds that are under performing, cutting programs departments that are redundant or not working, finding out the actual needs of our military and getting rid of the junk.

But all of that is left to politicians, who are bought and paid for by the beneficiaries of our tax dollars.

Please tell me what social programs benefit us high paid federal employees because I would like to apply for them. Also please post the internal GAO report that states 70% of federal employees do absolutely nothing to help the people they were intended to help.

I feel real good about myself, my job and the work I do. Here it is 1830 and I am working while I am home eating dinner with the family and typing this response, hoping that I don't get called out to the airport at 2 am like I did 2 weeks ago to respond to a potential threat.

During past boom times, those in the private sector laugh at public employees and the pittance they make. The trade-off? Public employees have a stable income, a fair retirement package, and job security. Their private compatriots are raking it in, but in a relatively volatile market where job security is a fleeting concept. Both sides get certain benefits. Now that we're in an extended recession or near-recession , with tons of private sector employees out of work, federal employees are now looked at as "fat cats." These reduction measures are a populist attempt by cowardly politicians to make it look like they're fighting the good fight by stripping these bloated fed employees of their "overly generous" benefits. It's pathetic.

I'm all for reducing the size of the government, but that means reducing entire agencies and maybe even departments that are superfluous, or removing/reducing some of the benefit and entitlement programs that are bleeding the government dry because they're poorly run and wasteful, or restructuring/consolidating agencies that duplicate efforts. That could mean reducing the number of federal jobs out there. If it's done fairly and over time, no problem. But what it doesn't mean is screwing current federal employees by taking away some of what in other times is seen as a pittance, namely their paychecks and benefits. We'll still be feeling those effects when the economy starts rolling again and we're once more pushed to the side, forced to watch everyone else get rich.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

...federal employees are now looked at as "fat cats." These reduction measures are a populist attempt by cowardly politicians to make it look like they're fighting the good fight by stripping these bloated fed employees of their "overly generous" benefits. It's pathetic.

Yes, the idea that our governor here in NJ and those in some other states to make cops and firemen and teachers the "enemy" was a really low attempt to divert our attention from a lot more egregious stuff. The reason those jobs always had good pensions was because there wasn't a good incentive for people to take those jobs without them, IMO. Although I did talk to a friend in Wisconsin who said the public service unions had gotten a bit carried away there, but he may have been drinking the Kool-Aid.

As you noted, it gets a bit complicated, if by cutting federal spending people lose their jobs. I think it's a bit too complicated for a sound bite and the attention span of most citizens. For instance, defense spending has been mentioned as a good target for spending cuts...however, if you think about it, most defense hardware is built...in the US...so cutting defense spending means less jobs for US workers, with the subsequent effects on US workers, companies, and the economy. That's one reason a lot of the stimulus spending was on infrastructure, which is a lot of labor and building materials that are hard to outsource.

Just to take that a little further, cutting entitlements may sound like a good idea, but the reverse side of that is that if people have less social security money, they may spend less, and if Medicare covers less, people who work in the health care industry may lose their jobs. It's not as simple as it sounds, for every action there is a reaction.

 

[bulldog shine]

Talk about waste in the federal government. The Department of Energy was founded in 1977. It was designed to help wean us off of oil. It now has over 16,000 employees and we are still dependent on oil.

Also a reply to someone, I did not look back that said about the banking industry is not an industry beacuse it does not make any product. I guess then the trucking industry is not an industry because it does not make a product. It is what you call a service industry. Hence the title or label what ever you want to call it.

 

[Bunky]

Just to take that a little further, cutting entitlements may sound like a good idea, but the reverse side of that is that if people have less social security money, they may spend less, and if Medicare covers less, people who work in the health care industry may lose their jobs. It's not as simple as it sounds, for every action there is a reaction.

Very true. Cutting the budget dramatically just to even balance the budget will cause a recession. There will be a lot jobs lost in every area.

Balancing the budget does not put any more money in tax payers pockets and takes money out of the economy. This is why most economists do not recommend the pure austerity approach since has a double hit..since it actually slow down an economy that you are trying to help that compounds the situation (even more reduced tax revenues).

We could eliminate every discretionary expense in the government except defense, entitlements that we pay for (social security, medicare), interest on the debt, and the remaining welfare programs and we still would not balance the budget.

Rather than wait for the debt ceiling deadline, if the Republicans have a better plan that has a chance of getting passed they should communicate and get buy in from the public.

 

[Shortspark]

Originally Posted by inyadreems
"...federal employees are now looked at as "fat cats." These reduction measures are a populist attempt by cowardly politicians to make it look like they're fighting the good fight by stripping these bloated fed employees of their "overly generous" benefits. It's pathetic".

I agree. I also agree that Federal employees are seen by many as "fat cats" and most of the appointed and elected positions have become exactly that. But there are some career employees that need to be taken out of that equation. I was a Federal Law Enforcement Officer for over 25 years. If you want the law enforced you must necessarily have the enforcers work for a government on some level, be it city, county, state or federal. By definition, only a government can enforce a law because only a government can make a law.

We worked many, many nights when the taxpayers we swore to protect were in cozy warm beds at home while our wives were sleeping alone. I am retired now but I still remember that a great deal of the time we were conducting those night time surveillance and enforcement activities in the cold and under very uncomfortable conditions for hours on end. All the while the bad guys were inside partying and having a ball with booze, with drugs, hookers - you name it.

Sometimes we got shot at and yes, sometimes we ended up dead. Even arrests that went without incident were always hairy and stressful - always. But it was the life we chose and we knew what was in store for us from the get go, we knew it without question. Federal Law Enforcement Agents don't ask for much in the scheme of things and certainly not in relationship to the duties and risks involved. All we ask is not to be considered and grouped together with the "fat cats".

 

[arack]

Yes, the idea that our governor here in NJ and those in some other states to make cops and firemen and teachers the "enemy" was a really low attempt to divert our attention from a lot more egregious stuff. The reason those jobs always had good pensions was because there wasn't a good incentive for people to take those jobs without them, IMO. Although I did talk to a friend in Wisconsin who said the public service unions had gotten a bit carried away there, but he may have been drinking the Kool-Aid.

As you noted, it gets a bit complicated, if by cutting federal spending people lose their jobs. I think it's a bit too complicated for a sound bite and the attention span of most citizens. For instance, defense spending has been mentioned as a good target for spending cuts...however, if you think about it, most defense hardware is built...in the US...so cutting defense spending means less jobs for US workers, with the subsequent effects on US workers, companies, and the economy. That's one reason a lot of the stimulus spending was on infrastructure, which is a lot of labor and building materials that are hard to outsource.

Just to take that a little further, cutting entitlements may sound like a good idea, but the reverse side of that is that if people have less social security money, they may spend less, and if Medicare covers less, people who work in the health care industry may lose their jobs. It's not as simple as it sounds, for every action there is a reaction.

We need to cut all spending by 2 percent across the board for all areas. Each year. Slow down the Ss colas and freeze Medicare

This debt is real. So is the deficit. This time, we are not spending our way out of this. Ignoring it will not make it go away. The tax increases are here ,but there is not nearly enough spending cuts to balance the books for the long term.

Federal employees are overpaid in most cases. It's a fact. It is part of the problem for sure. I know you guys work hard but the party is over soon.

 

[TroyScherer]

There are some people we should push off the cliff....

 

[arack]

What other currency? Even with the FED devaluing the dollar as fast as they can, nobody can find anything better to buy!

It is called China. It will happen soon they have already slowed down their purchases of our debt.

 

[arack]

There are some people we should push off the cliff....

I agree. I say we meet at the cliff and you can have all my detailing stuff if you can push me over. Bring some friends from Virginia. You will need the backup. Lol

 

[Y2KSVT]

As you noted, it gets a bit complicated, if by cutting federal spending people lose their jobs. I think it's a bit too complicated for a sound bite and the attention span of most citizens. For instance, defense spending has been mentioned as a good target for spending cuts...however, if you think about it, most defense hardware is built...in the US...so cutting defense spending means less jobs for US workers, with the subsequent effects on US workers, companies, and the economy. That's one reason a lot of the stimulus spending was on infrastructure, which is a lot of labor and building materials that are hard to outsource.

Just to take that a little further, cutting entitlements may sound like a good idea, but the reverse side of that is that if people have less social security money, they may spend less, and if Medicare covers less, people who work in the health care industry may lose their jobs. It's not as simple as it sounds, for every action there is a reaction.

Ever heard of the Military Industrial Complex? Eisenhower kind of warned us of that, oh, 52 years ago! Why do you think we keep ramming our noses into these other countries' business? And starting "preemptive wars"? We need to justify the BILLIONS of dollars we're spending on these government made tanks, jets and guns. Or is it the other way around, we need to justify the wars by spending BILLIONS on tanks, jets and guns? Ahh, now that's just unpatriotic talk!!

Very true. Cutting the budget dramatically just to even balance the budget will cause a recession. There will be a lot jobs lost in every area.

Balancing the budget does not put any more money in tax payers pockets and takes money out of the economy. This is why most economists do not recommend the pure austerity approach since has a double hit..since it actually slow down an economy that you are trying to help that compounds the situation (even more reduced tax revenues).

We could eliminate every discretionary expense in the government except defense, entitlements that we pay for (social security, medicare), interest on the debt, and the remaining welfare programs and we still would not balance the budget.

Rather than wait for the debt ceiling deadline, if the Republicans have a better plan that has a chance of getting passed they should communicate and get buy in from the public.

Balancing the budget doesn't put money into taxpayers pockets? Okay, so the government not only takes a portion out of our paychecks, but they also borrow money from China, and then have the Federal Reserve print money out of thin air. I guess all of this inflation we're seeing and the devaluing of the dollar isn't taking money out of our pockets? You do realize that we're seeing a lot greater than 2% inflation (albeit, the Fed would try to have you believe differently) but most of us aren't seeing even a 2% increase in pay each year. So, if the cost of goods goes up, and our paychecks don't, how is that not taking money out of our pockets? This is simple economics, which neither the Republicans or Democrats want to even think about. It's just so much easier to point fingers at each other while the ship sinks.

 

[BillE]

Question...

How much of the national debt is on the interest owed?

Been trying to figure that one out, but man either I'm dumb as a box o' rocks or just looking at the wrong 'stuff.'

Thanx...

Bill

 

[davidc]

Question...

How much of the national debt is on the interest owed?

Been trying to figure that one out, but man either I'm dumb as a box o' rocks or just looking at the wrong 'stuff.'

Thanx...

Bill

This should tell you all you need to know
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Scarey

Dave

 

[BillE]

Thank you!

Now, to do some serious looking.

Bill

 

[Bunky]

Balancing the budget doesn't put money into taxpayers pockets?

My point was I believe that a significant number of people looking for some tax reduction as promised by some political candidates that with lower taxes, the economy will flourish and we will all live happily ever after. We now have historically low taxes combined with deficit spending (that does create jobs) and the economy is struggling.

Some claim to not want to be like Europe but some countries have very competitive economies, a strong export flow, national health care, and have strong social programs.

 

[BobbyG]

My point was I believe that a significant number of people looking for some tax reduction as promised by some political candidates that with lower taxes, the economy will flourish and we will all live happily ever after. We now have historically low taxes combined with deficit spending (that does create jobs) and the economy is struggling.

Some claim to not want to be like Europe but some countries have very competitive economies, a strong export flow, national health care, and have strong social programs.

:iagree: Well said Al!! rops: