Also FWIW a Balanced Budget amendment is a nice idea and talking point but it's also practically undoable. If you require a balanced budget how do you cover unexpected emergencies such as attack's, natural disasters, turmoil, etc, etc. It's nice to talk these nice conservative and liberal talking points but can they be done practically?

mrtinkertrain;854028 wrote:Also FWIW a Balanced Budget amendment is a nice idea and talking point but it's also practically undoable. If you require a balanced budget how do you cover unexpected emergencies such as attack's, natural disasters, turmoil, etc, etc. It's nice to talk these nice conservative and liberal talking points but can they be done practically?

Yes. You simply include clear-cut clauses in the balanced budget amendment to consider such contingencies but it would take - say - a 70% majority vote in both houses of Congress to implement such emergency measures.

"If you require a balanced budget how do you cover unexpected emergencies such as attack's, natural disasters, turmoil, etc, etc. "

Pass another amendment, or account for it in the first one.

Is our government that incompetent that it can't handle this? If there is a natural disaster then Congressman/Congresswoman "X" can get off their yacht, head to DC and deal with it. We're living like we are still under British rule. Our public servants work for us, not the other way around.

mrtinkertrain;854028 wrote:Also FWIW a Balanced Budget amendment is a nice idea and talking point but it's also practically undoable. If you require a balanced budget how do you cover unexpected emergencies such as attack's, natural disasters, turmoil, etc, etc. It's nice to talk these nice conservative and liberal talking points but can they be done practically?

For starters, you target 18% of GDP (not a "balanced" budget, per se) and expect to run deficits and surpluses alternately that equal out. Then, you view the "unexpected" just like other forms of insurance which involves creating accounts for such rainy days. Or you do what mom & pop do when weather ruins the roof and they have to spend a little less somewhere else to find money to fix it.

The problem as I see it is nearly everyone is a socialist/humanitarian at heart. We don't want people to starve, we want people to have a roof over their head, healthcare, etc... And so we've gotten to the point where we say yes to everything with complete disregard of where the money is going to come from. And no one wants to make the tough decisions because there's grandma living on the streets or little Susie eating dogfood to get by. Let's roll back entitlements 20-30 years - were things all that bad back then? I just don't see it as this awful disaster to ween people off the govt teet.

gut;854209 wrote:For starters, you target 18% of GDP (not a "balanced" budget, per se) and expect to run deficits and surpluses alternately that equal out. ....

By expecting to run deficits and surpluses alternately that equal out you have defined a balanced budget. The debt level of 18% doesn't change that.

tk421;854023 wrote:Pretty bad when the Chinese are telling us that excess debt and spending is bad for this country. You'd think Congress would be able to understand that.

I read the scolding article from the Chinese too. They have a lot of nerve to complain about running finances, no? Hey China you stupid fuks, why don't you use your excess 4 trillion...that you have ciphoned off from your economy, to fix the clusterfuk in your own country....as opposed to investing in an operation that is 14 trillion in debt?

Con_Alma;854211 wrote:By expecting to run deficits and surpluses alternately that equal out you have defined a balanced budget. The debt level of 18% doesn't change that.

I agree. I'm just explaining the mechanics because I think some people get hung-up that receipts need to equal revenues every year, and at least on the federal level that is somewhat impractical given the link between revenues and GDP.

And the sort of contigency planning I mentioned will never happen, because no one has the stomach to cut entitlements while a rainy day fund grows. Doesn't really matter as paying down the debt becomes that "savings" account. If you pay off $200B in debt every year, then after 5 years you have $1T if you need it for stimulus or whatever that leaves the debt unchanged. Doesn't sound like much of a plan, but keep in mind the debt as a % of GDP will be approximately 1/4th what it is today after 30 years just from growth and inflation. Ultimately that was kind of the purpose of a debt ceiling - it should have been a dead stop but there's been no respect or adherence to that debt ceiling.

Until voters wake-up and start throwing these budget-incompetent lawyers out of office en masse I can't see much changing. There's no accountability, and they all pretty much take the easy way out of simply printing more money to spend more. Especially with the senior incumbents, they just keep kicking the can down the road knowing they'll be retired (or choose to retire) when there's no recourse left but to make the tough decisions. And the freshmen come in with no power or influence to affect real change, and get labeled terrorists when they do try to leverage what little they have.

Footwedge;854246 wrote:I read the scolding article from the Chinese too. They have a lot of nerve to complain about running finances, no? Hey China you stupid fuks, why don't you use your excess 4 trillion...that you have ciphoned off from your economy, to fix the clusterfuk in your own country....as opposed to investing in an operation that is 14 trillion in debt?

I read the same article too and that was precisely my response. I think it's odd that much of the Chinese population still lives in oppressed conditions yet their gubmint sits on a huge cash cow.

However, the Chinese SHOULD be concerned about the condition of the American economy. As more and more Americans feel the pinch of this on-going sour economy, we are far less likely to be able to purchase cheap Chinese goods.

The worldwide economic scenario is on the brink of a major implosion.

believer;854264 wrote:I read the same article too and that was precisely my response. I think it's odd that much of the Chinese population still lives in oppressed conditions yet their gubmint sits on a huge cash cow.

However, the Chinese SHOULD be concerned about the condition of the American economy. As more and more Americans feel the pinch of this on-going sour economy, we are far less likely to be able to purchase cheap Chinese goods.

The worldwide economic scenario is on the brink of a major implosion.

Believer, nothing would tickle my balls more if we wrote off our China debt.

Footwedge;854389 wrote:Believer, nothing would tickle my balls more if we wrote off our China debt.

I'd be OK with it too. I'd love to see Beijing get its arrogant undies in a bunch. Their commie gubmint has oppressed political, social, economic and religious freedoms among the Chinese people and subsidized their industries to undercut competition.

Meanwhile our government has been all too eager to allow the Chi-coms to "buy" our national debt while we turn a blind eye to it all. Now the gubmint controlled Chi-com media feels free to criticize the American gubmint for being fiscally irresponsible. While they are certainly correct in that assessment, the blatant hypocrisy in the criticism amazes me.

After all, they climbed out of second-class status economically by "capitalizing" on the voracious appetites of U.S. consumers.

If the Feds are to default on anything, I'd say they should start with the Chinese.

Bloomberg reporting the downgrade will indeed cost the government an additional $100 billion in interest.

Thank you, obama, for your fabulous leadership in presiding over the first downgrade in US history.

Change we can believe in .....

Dow futures down over 200.

A couple trillion in private wealth wiped out in 2 weeks.

If one was trying to ruin our economy, this is the path they would take.

Change we can believe in.....

QuakerOats;854441 wrote:Dow futures down over 200.

A couple trillion in private wealth wiped out in 2 weeks.

So if they were going to lose $2T, anyway, they might as well have just stepped forward to bail out the govt in the first place. I mean, DUH!!!

QO- i've already moved my 401k into very conservative accounts. I'm certain I am not the only one. God save us from the upcoming meltdown this week.

Whatever happens, it's all Bush's fault.

Asian markets aren't happy:

http://www.sgx.com/wps/portal/sgxweb/home/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gjR0cTDwNnA0v_MANzA89Qf6fg4LAww0BXY_2CbEdFAK5CEds!/

Hong Kong is the same, 3.5-4% drop:

http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/index.htm

believer;854399 wrote:I'd be OK with it too. I'd love to see Beijing get its arrogant undies in a bunch. Their commie gubmint has oppressed political, social, economic and religious freedoms among the Chinese people and subsidized their industries to undercut competition.

Meanwhile our government has been all too eager to allow the Chi-coms to "buy" our national debt while we turn a blind eye to it all. Now the gubmint controlled Chi-com media feels free to criticize the American gubmint for being fiscally irresponsible. While they are certainly correct in that assessment, the blatant hypocrisy in the criticism amazes me.

After all, they climbed out of second-class status economically by "capitalizing" on the voracious appetites of U.S. consumers.

If the Feds are to default on anything, I'd say they should start with the Chinese.

Well said. Fug China.

Asia now down 4.5-5 across the board, it is going to be an ugly day for wall street.

Manhattan Buckeye;854756 wrote:Asia now down 4.5-5 across the board, it is going to be an ugly day for wall street.

Looking forward to seeing my 401K plummet again....Well, OK, maybe not but we know it's coming at least.

Last week I went under water on my yearly investments as did the entire market. This week we get to see even bigger losses.

But - hey - we're just eeeeevil, greedy Wall Streeters anyways. We should pay more of our fair share....right? :mad:

We had a last two hour bounce, Sing is still down 3.5, HK down 2.2, it could be much worse, but there isn't much confidence from the bounce.

Those who are sitting on cash are going to find have some buying opportunities this week.

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jrubicam/the-government-spending-binge?src=facebook

tk421;853910 wrote:To be honest, I don't really think a balanced budget amendment would have that much weight with Congress either. They don't really seem too concerned about either bypassing or pretty much ignoring parts of the constitution that they don't like, I doubt an amendment forcing them to spend within the government's means would last more than a single election cycle. As soon as they start to get voted out for failing to bring the money back to their districts, the balanced budget would go out the window.

I'm sure they would find a parliamentary procedure to just "deem" that they had a balanced budget.

In case anybody noticed, the Bond Markets don't seem to care what the S&P thinks. Prolly a win/win cus it gets front page news and perhaps the government will get its act together and yet it's evident that investors still choose our debt when they want to head to quality...even after a downgrade. www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/us/

BoatShoes;855055 wrote:In case anybody noticed, the Bond Markets don't seem to care what the S&P thinks.

Actually, it does. This is just a flight to safety, and US Treasuries are still viewed as the safest thing out there (paying interest, anyway).

I think I saw where the downgrade was going to cost an estimated $100B more a year in interest, or about 70bps (which is probably a little high).