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Forums - General - $52,300 for a family of 4 is what the government needs to collect.

Kasz216 on 03 April 2009
Epoch said:

Halogamer:

Allowing some of the largest American banking companies in the U.S. to fail would be an open invitation for foreign interests to come in and seize marketshare, not to mention the mess that would be made trying to figure out who owns what debt.  Not a necessarily a good thing for Americans.  But something should be done about the horrific inefficiencies associated with bureaucracies.

Squirrel:

Its a scary situation when you consider how much U.S. debt China owns.  I think if they were a little less dependant upon Americans buying their cheaply made goods, they may find it advantageous to just dump that dept at a loss and trigger further monetary collapse.  The world economic market is complex and we as North Americans have built ourselves quite the house of cards based upon foreign powers investing trillions in our currency like its a stock.  And what happens when a stock takes a major hit?  Do you ride it out and wait for it to get better?  Or do you sell and take the loss, reinvesting elsewhere?

That's not really a problem since all that money is taken out in American Dollars.

Unlike other countries our debt is mostly in our own currency.

Devaluation actually helps us out.

I mean think about it.

Say I take out a loan today for 10 dollars from a Tramalfdorian.... and he gives me 10 Zeta Bucks.

Then the price of the dollar drops to .5 Tramalfdorians.

I pay him 10 dollars back... and he's the one taking a net loss of 5 Zeta bucks.

If China dumped all of our money and caused a price crash.  They're the ones who would be losing big... them and the rest of the world more then the USA.

Which is why the USA is so afraid of the Euro becoming the new world standard.  Future economic hard times won't be as cusioned.

 



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psrock on 03 April 2009
Kasz216 said:
psrock said:
It may be Obama is spending too much, the problem is you guys don't have an answer either. I'll take my chances with some one who actually looks for average people instead of the previous president who took care of his rich friends.

The Gini coeeficent which is the current accepted statistical indicator of the divison of wealth showed that Bush was the best president for this since like WW2.

Under Bush the Rich did not get richer.  The gap between the rich and poor grew much slower then among any other president.

The biggest culprits of this?

Reagan and Clinton.

Moral of the story.  Republicans and Democrats both just look out for their rich friends.

Bush was different because he didn't look out for anybody.

come on man, do you really believe what you just wrote? me and you live in the real world,  The first thing Bush did was reward the rich as soon as he got into office with his tax cuts.

More some 60 percent of the 2001 tax cuts went to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers.

 

 



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Kasz216 on 03 April 2009
psrock said:
Kasz216 said:
psrock said:
It may be Obama is spending too much, the problem is you guys don't have an answer either. I'll take my chances with some one who actually looks for average people instead of the previous president who took care of his rich friends.

The Gini coeeficent which is the current accepted statistical indicator of the divison of wealth showed that Bush was the best president for this since like WW2.

Under Bush the Rich did not get richer.  The gap between the rich and poor grew much slower then among any other president.

The biggest culprits of this?

Reagan and Clinton.

Moral of the story.  Republicans and Democrats both just look out for their rich friends.

Bush was different because he didn't look out for anybody.

come on man, do you really believe what you just wrote? me and you live in the real world,  The first thing Bush did was reward the rich as soon as he got into office with his tax cuts.

More some 60 percent of the 2001 tax cuts went to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers.

 

You can check the statistics yourself.

Besides... what you stated isn't actually true.

Under the Bush tax cuts the tax code got MORE progressive not less.

http://www.ncpa.org/media/did-the-bush-tax-cuts-favor-the-wealthy

Just about any study using actual numbers proves this.

The Gini Coefficent proves the gap has grown slowest under Bush then any president since like WW2.

You can hide behind all the political hype you want... but the truth is.

While bush was a shitty president.  The gap between the rich and poor was one of the things he got right.

That and funding to Africa.  He was like the most generous president in terms of cash to Africa.



Epoch on 03 April 2009
Kasz216 said:
Epoch said:

Halogamer:

Allowing some of the largest American banking companies in the U.S. to fail would be an open invitation for foreign interests to come in and seize marketshare, not to mention the mess that would be made trying to figure out who owns what debt.  Not a necessarily a good thing for Americans.  But something should be done about the horrific inefficiencies associated with bureaucracies.

Squirrel:

Its a scary situation when you consider how much U.S. debt China owns.  I think if they were a little less dependant upon Americans buying their cheaply made goods, they may find it advantageous to just dump that dept at a loss and trigger further monetary collapse.  The world economic market is complex and we as North Americans have built ourselves quite the house of cards based upon foreign powers investing trillions in our currency like its a stock.  And what happens when a stock takes a major hit?  Do you ride it out and wait for it to get better?  Or do you sell and take the loss, reinvesting elsewhere?

That's not really a problem since all that money is taken out in American Dollars.

Unlike other countries our debt is mostly in our own currency.

Devaluation actually helps us out.

I mean think about it.

Say I take out a loan today for 10 dollars from a Tramalfdorian.... and he gives me 10 Zeta Bucks.

Then the price of the dollar drops to .5 Tramalfdorians.

I pay him 10 dollars back... and he's the one taking a net loss of 5 Zeta bucks.

If China dumped all of our money and caused a price crash.  They're the ones who would be losing big... them and the rest of the world more then the USA.

Which is why the USA is so afraid of the Euro becoming the new world standard.  Future economic hard times won't be as cusioned.

 

Saying that its not a problem is a very short-term statement.  Yes it helps short term in that you aren't losing as big right now, but if they drop your debt and currency with the intention of never using your currency again... then its trouble. 

But yes, short term devaluation can be beneficial, so long as the Dollar is still considered to be the worlds currency.

 



Kasz216 on 03 April 2009
Epoch said:
Kasz216 said:
Epoch said:

Halogamer:

Allowing some of the largest American banking companies in the U.S. to fail would be an open invitation for foreign interests to come in and seize marketshare, not to mention the mess that would be made trying to figure out who owns what debt.  Not a necessarily a good thing for Americans.  But something should be done about the horrific inefficiencies associated with bureaucracies.

Squirrel:

Its a scary situation when you consider how much U.S. debt China owns.  I think if they were a little less dependant upon Americans buying their cheaply made goods, they may find it advantageous to just dump that dept at a loss and trigger further monetary collapse.  The world economic market is complex and we as North Americans have built ourselves quite the house of cards based upon foreign powers investing trillions in our currency like its a stock.  And what happens when a stock takes a major hit?  Do you ride it out and wait for it to get better?  Or do you sell and take the loss, reinvesting elsewhere?

That's not really a problem since all that money is taken out in American Dollars.

Unlike other countries our debt is mostly in our own currency.

Devaluation actually helps us out.

I mean think about it.

Say I take out a loan today for 10 dollars from a Tramalfdorian.... and he gives me 10 Zeta Bucks.

Then the price of the dollar drops to .5 Tramalfdorians.

I pay him 10 dollars back... and he's the one taking a net loss of 5 Zeta bucks.

If China dumped all of our money and caused a price crash.  They're the ones who would be losing big... them and the rest of the world more then the USA.

Which is why the USA is so afraid of the Euro becoming the new world standard.  Future economic hard times won't be as cusioned.

 

Saying that its not a problem is a very short-term statement.  Yes it helps short term in that you aren't losing as big right now, but if they drop your debt and currency with the intention of never using your currency again... then its trouble. 

But yes, short term devaluation can be beneficial, so long as the Dollar is still considered to be the worlds currency.

 

That I agree with.  I thought you were talking about ended up like Iceland though.

China gains nothing from changing to a Euro standard so i can't see them taking a loss just to give the US the middle finger.

The real worry is if a country like Switzerland or the UK goes broke... then who knows what would happen.



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elprincipe on 04 April 2009
theprof00 said:
I think they are probably the most trustworthy people to have it at the moment.
My life is good here, and it's because of the gov.

I follow politics for a living, and this is either gross ignorance or just plain insanity.  There are few less-trustworthy groups out there than politicans to vote for the common good, and if your life is good (congrats) it's in spite of the government, not becasue of it (unless you are getting rich off political favors).

 



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elprincipe on 04 April 2009
halogamer1989 said:

Anyway, mafoo, what did you expect?  It's patriotic to pay more taxes after all

Unless you are a Cabinet nominee.

 



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Lingyis on 04 April 2009

the deficit... nothing quite like it to get people riled up.

first off, it's not like this is news. anybody who follows the finances of this country knows it's coming.

secondly, nobody knows for a fact if this is a bad thing. 100% debt with regards to GDP most economists consider is something okay, as well as a deficit 3% of annual GDP. of course, economists tend to be wrong a lot, and i think they could be quite wrong on this. but this year's deficit really isn't something you can say no to.

most economists, while they won't say it in the press that often, believe that pretty much all the currently debt-heavy nations, like Japan, Britain, Spain, Greece, and of course, the US, will have to inflate their way out of it.

it is not without precedent that a major industrialized nation gets into debt trouble. britain asked for IMF money in 1976 when its debt got out of hand as its currency tumbled. austere measures were taken, and the country eventually recovered. it's not all that bad really, a decade or two of tighter purse strings and collective sacrifices.

of course, the US getting into trouble is an order of magnitude more serious than the british. ironically, there is a host of reasons it would hurt other countries more than the US itself. US loses its leadership position, sure, but it gets a chance and a rhetoric for politicians to rebalance its economy.

but it's not like the US gets to maintain being a hegemon anyway, so we might as well get it over with sooner as opposed to clinging to it.

whether a world without a hegemon is better off... my feeling is most certainly not. but that is for another discussion.



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akuma587 on 04 April 2009
psrock said:

I don't think you guys hate spending at all, it's just who they are spending this money on that's pissing you off.

 

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

halogamer1989 on 04 April 2009
elprincipe said:
halogamer1989 said:

Anyway, mafoo, what did you expect?  It's patriotic to pay more taxes after all

Unless you are a Cabinet nominee.

 

Yeah right   More Biden gaffes come true.