Sloppy U.S spending of money.
- Thread starter KJbushway
- Start date
Good luck with that last part. and for that matter the first part. The problem is that the prices for everything would soar because of our set paycheck amount. So its a pipe dream, but we would be the better for it, the quality of the old days are seen today in American Pickers.
The military industrial complex has got you by the balls -- should have listened to Ike.
Our deficit is still within a certain percentage of our GDP. As long as it stays within that amount, alarm bells aren't set off. Sure it would be nice to be under budget, which means both non-cosmetic spending changes (i.e. changes with non-discretionary spending, including long-term military research projects and reform of social security) as well as tax increases (I'd hope for a tax simplification process that reduces all deductibles except a few that the middle class relies on, plus things like claiming dependents, but lowers the overall rate). However, I still think Keynsian Economics have proved successful in the past.
Discipline and sacrifice -- two qualities in short supply in America today.
It's a little ridiculous for the USA to worry about debt as a percent of GDP in the same way as many other countries have to. Its reserve currency status (unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, even with the rise of other countries) means it's much easier for the US to run up and - crucially - easily finance massive deficits and not worry too much. In a way, economic size mitigates debt, even beyond mere percentage terms.
Having said all that, the US really has unnecessarily abused that ability to borrow, and its longer-term interests would be well-served by a reduction. It has a LOT more time to play with than any other country would have with its debt/GDP level, but short-termist politicians have kept postponing the necessary budget reductions for 20+ years. Each year that passes makes the decisions harder. If the US was wise, it would use its long range ability to manage high deficits constructively, to gradually reduce them with little real impact, while it still can. In 20-30 years time, it will be too late, and more drastic measures will be required.
Then you'll be facing much more challenging decisions because your borrowing facility will be much more expensive (this is something the UK had to learn, it having had the primary reserve currency at one point, instead of the lesser reserve currency it has today).
Having said all that, the US really has unnecessarily abused that ability to borrow, and its longer-term interests would be well-served by a reduction. It has a LOT more time to play with than any other country would have with its debt/GDP level, but short-termist politicians have kept postponing the necessary budget reductions for 20+ years. Each year that passes makes the decisions harder. If the US was wise, it would use its long range ability to manage high deficits constructively, to gradually reduce them with little real impact, while it still can. In 20-30 years time, it will be too late, and more drastic measures will be required.
Then you'll be facing much more challenging decisions because your borrowing facility will be much more expensive (this is something the UK had to learn, it having had the primary reserve currency at one point, instead of the lesser reserve currency it has today).
You, uh, don't have a very good sarcasm detector do you?
^OK, in the spirit of that, lets look at your reply to my post!
This is a decent reply, it goes somewhat in the spirit of my post.
Wha? You mean price inflation? why would buying american cause price inflation? And just what is a "set paycheck amount"? Did the federal government suddenly mandate what everyone makes?
Do you really think there would suddenly be an improvement in quality if people were forced to "buy american"? Think about it.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I think we need to scale back the military big time. Close our bases in Europe and all over the world. Scale back our presence in the world completely. Stop bieng the world police, stop practicing Imperielism. Adopt a policy like the Prime Directive and start not interfering. Stop paying dictators to be our friends. Legalize all drugs in small amounts and tax them. Tax corperate pollutors. Small, reasonable tax on all imports. I'm going to burn for this one, but return to the gold standard. Limit congress' spending to 20% of GDP. Start taxing banks and corperations who apparently don't pay taxes. Stop the military industrial complex. Fix health care, fix imigration.Tax illegals. Stop borrowing money, stop printing money. Invest in solving problems like cancer, aids, poverty, famine, starvation, the environment. Invest in clean energy and environmental projects that do pay off and create jobs. Get rid of income tax, have a 5% national sales tax on all goods. Actually pay for government spending like wars by directly taxing the people, also reinstitute the draft. Also dismantle the large standing army and allow States to raise malitias. Stop subsidies including farm subsidies, all subsidies. Raise the federal minimum wage and make it so anyone who works regardless of legal status is allowed minimum wage. I mean my god, I could go on, but these are the big ideas.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
^ First off enforce the law. If a person hires an illegal imigrant without a visa or whatever, fine them heavily or throw them in jail. Don't punish the illegal as much as the employer. Secondly, you have to reform imigration laws. My Idea would be to allow the people that are here currently a chance to get a visa. Give visa's out more frequently thus creating a leagal status. Doesn't mean they are granted citizenship, just allowed to stay here and work. They can then start the proccess of citizenship or whatever status they are seeking.Thirdly, I don't think you should have to be a citizen or a legal resident to get equal pay. So if you do these things, you incentivise those are illegal to come out of the woodwork and fill out the proper paper work. If there are still stragelers, then INS would be forced to deal with them. Lastly, allow the States to set up thier own citizenship requirements and take it out of the hands of the Feds.
No. Hell no. We don't operate under the Articles of Confederation and states have no authority over what is by all rights a federal matter.
Beyond that, I see no evidence that states would handle things any better than the feds do. In fact, giving states jurisdiction over citizenship be an utter, unworkable disaster. Should I worry about whether or not Arizona thinks I'm a citizen? If I cross state borders do I have to worry about arrest and deportation? What if I want to move? Huge. Mess.
I wrote the equivalent of a 3 page essay in the other thread. You want more? Paypal me some money like any other writer-on-demand.
The problem isn't the tax rate, but tax loopholes. That was one of the highlights of the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission. We could reduce corporate rates AND personal rates and still bring in more income by removing asinine little exceptions that were intended for the middle class, but were taken to ridiculous extents by the wealthy.KJbushway said:
This.
fix immigration.
As in decreasing it? The US naturalizes a million plus new citizens a year, you seem to be suggesting increasing that number, starting with a group of people who began their time in America by committing the crime of illegal immigration, my family managed to immigrate to this country without breaking any laws. Why put people who have at the head of the line?
reasonable tax on all imports
This makes sense, for the majority of it's history America has levied tariffs on imports. Europe currently does so without using the term.
Fix health care
Getting rid of Obamacare would be the first step, then enact legislation to reduce prices and costs. No cookie-cutter government health care.
Tax illegals.
Expel illegals, accept legal immigrates only.
stop printing money.
Having the government stop printing "junk money" is a good idea.
also reinstitute the draft
There's no reason for this move, it helps nothing and would harm overall military readiness.
Because pretending they're not already here, or that we could actually round them all up and send them back to Mexico and parts beyond is a fantasy. There's 12 million people in here illegally. There is no clean, philosophically elegant solution to this problem. There's already hefty fines for the employers of illegals, but there isn't nearly enough officers and agents to enforce the laws. There is only A) the status quo: an illegal underclass being used as almost-slave labor by unscrupulous businesses. B) Some kind of path to citzenship. C) Directly investing hundreds of billions of dollars into Mexico, hoping that we'll kick start an economic boom big enough to lure the illegals back to their homeland.
The difference between them, economically, is that option B turns the illegals into taxpayers. Option C takes American citizen's tax dollars and spends them in a foreign country. Option A supresses overall wages, since employers can hire illegals at below MW, and therefore overall reduces tax revenue. Which option is most palatable to you?
Obamacare was largely insurance reform. It's not even Obama's original idea for reform, take a look at Bob Dole's old health care plan. Obama borrowed heavily from it. That's right, the thing that the right hates more than anything right now, came 90% from the GOP of 15 years ago. I can't think of anything more conservative than that.
The only thing missing from the reform bill, and you kind of hit on this, is direct cost controls for Medicare. However, cost schedules won't work alone without the Obama reforms. Obama's reforms won't do much to stem costs without the cost schedules. We need both.
Taking another cue from the right, tort reform wouldn't hurt either. It's damn expensive to be an Ob/Gyn in this country.
Given the use of the term "junk money," that I think you might have just invented (there's no such thing in any economics textbook I've read), and with all due respect, I don't think you truly know if it is, or is not a good idea. I will hand it to you, it sounds nice, why don't we just stop borrowing money? Reality is that our money supply deflated to the tune of trillions of dollars. All the money banks are too afraid to lend, all the credit cards that had their limits chopped. All the homes repossessed. All harmed the money supply. See, the government isn't the sole source of inflation. Honestly, it's not even the biggest. Banks are.
Due to the fractional reserve system (a bank only has ~10 cents on hand for every dollar it loans out) a loan for $100,000 is quite literally creating $90,000 of money out of thin air. On the other hand, money can disappear instantly too. All those people that bought $500,000 dollar McMansions, that defaulted on their loan because that same house is now valued at $300,000 and they were underwater on the loan, that's deflation. So for every dollar that the fed adds to the supply in its quantitative easing measure, another whole dollar (or more) has been taken out. Money is constantly being created and destroyed, and all we see are the big events and the aggregate total.
As a general rule of thumb, as long as everyone you know are still living in homes worth less than what they were before the recession, you can stop worrying about "printing money." We still haven't dug ourselves out of the massive crater in our money supply to think too much about inflation. So far, surging demand from China and India, and ethanol requirements, are a much bigger cause of the recent rise in food prices (and oil, excluding the last item, ethanol neither increases or decreases demand for oil, but that's its own thread) than anything the Fed has done.
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