Debt ceiling bill.

[Kuraikiba]

We raise the ceiling, not realizing when the building comes down, the ceiling will have farther to fall.

[evilneko]

Anybody ever think that this whole thing was staged, so that the republicans and the democrats could look good to their constituents.

 

No, it was staged so that Republicans could try to look good for their more extreme base (read: Tea Party), at least for a while. The Democrats--and Obama in particular--have absolutely not endeared themselves to their voters. Pretty much the only win for the left was the removal of the senseless balanced budget amendment. The whole kerfluffle was a Republican victory.

 

Hopefully a pyrrhic victory, as swing voters disgusted with the right's tactics decide to turn elsewhere, but a victory nonetheless.

 

But more than the democrats, and the left in general, the real losers are we the American people. Not only will jobs be lost and the economy slowed thanks to the cuts, but the whole circus around the debt ceiling "problem" distracted attention away from another, very real problem putting thousands out of work and costing the government hundreds of millions in revenue: the shutdown of the FAA. Were it not for the debt ceiling circus, this would have been the top story.

 

 

We raise the ceiling, not realizing when the building comes down, the ceiling will have farther to fall.

 

We raise the debt ceiling, realizing that it is necessary to raise it in order to build underneath it so that it doesn't fall.

Fixed.

[Kuraikiba]

*sigh*...

 

The situation we are in is a serious one, yet people somehow still believe that this is a to be a squabble about parties. Guess what? Democrats failed. Republicans failed. Congress failed. Note that politicians could not prevent this massive debt, nor have they the courage to do what is necessary to save the economy.

 

We operate under a belief that we can do whatever we want, and ALWAYS have a quick bounce back and a happy ending. Nice ideal. Now for the concept of reality to kick in. We cannot pay our debt with money we do not have. That's like paying a credit card bill with a credit card.

 

In the Great Depression, there was a large fall, yes, but people believed everything was just peachy as soon as a small raise happened. However, according to Elliot Wave Theory, this was expected. And as could be predicted, a fall much greater than the original drop. Are we so deluded that we believe this can never happen again, even with rampant and wasteful spending?

 

This is not about parties. No political party can or will do jack squat now. Do we really expect that a debt that is 19/20 of our entire GDP could be paid of, considering it's escalating to the point where even our whole monetary supply could not pay even the interest in mere years?

[RZ1029]

We raise the ceiling (again), not realizing when the building comes down (again), the ceiling will have farther to fall (with even more fatal results).

 

EDIT: Fix'd.

Edited August 4, 2011 by RZ1029

[Saraane]

Well, I think we got the answer to their "debt ceiling solution" today/yesterday in the stock markets. What was it, biggest drop since sometime in 2009? NIIIICE.

 

There are two problems here. Number one is by the time ANYone gets to a powerful position, they have been bought and sold at least 100 times by various interest groups. If we just killed all the lobbiest many of our problems would go away.

 

Number two (and I may be a bit bias here) Is that no one KNOWS how to fix this and everyone has their own ideas. The main force of the Democrats a year ago thought playing Santa all year long would be the solution and they could just tax everyone (especially those hated rich *that weren't them or their friends* to death) to pay it off later. Problem there was, someone realized that if the rich, IE employers started losing their money it would trickle alll the way down to the poorest of the poor.

 

The Republican plan is to just stop spending money and just not add any taxes to anyone. But the Democrats (and some Republicans) LIKE playing Santa (especially to those groups they owe their SOULS to) and don't want to let those groups down. So they fight... and nothing gets done.

 

And today... the economy crashes and burns... AGAIN because of it.

 

And one thing that bothers me...

 

THIS ECONOMY IS NO ONE ADMINISTRATIONS FAULT!!!

 

(starting when I paid attention)

Clinton made those trade deals for the "World Economy"... which lowered tarrifs on foreign goods and made even MORE American companies "run for the border", shall we say. Lower taxes, lower worker pay... WHY NOT!!!

Clinton also allowed "Freddie and Fanny" to do whatever they wanted... including many sliding scale loans to people who THEY KNEW COULD. NOT. PAY.

 

Bush did do the handouts (IE refunds) and did get us involved in some expensive wars... but this is the reign of Nancy Pelossi as the speaker of the house. In my humble opinion, Bush didn't VETO enough...

Bush also did nothing to correct the mistakes of the past... IE Freddy and Fanny

 

Then the toilet that is our economy begins to over flow...

 

Bush does start the bailout trend, granted.

 

Obama is President.

Bailouts

Trying their darnedest to pass that moronic EPA bill which would have killed the economy dead should it have passed

Obama care

More wars (including the "not war")

Scaring Businessmen to death with threatened taxes, not knowing WHAT they would be taxed and NO INSENTIVES TO HIRE PEOPLE...

 

say it with me...

 

IDIOTS!!!!

 

As for stuff before Clinton... I'm sure older and wiser folks than I would be happy to tell you how the Presidents (and congress) of their time screwed up.

[marharth]

Well, I think we got the answer to their "debt ceiling solution" today/yesterday in the stock markets. What was it, biggest drop since sometime in 2009? NIIIICE.

 

There are two problems here. Number one is by the time ANYone gets to a powerful position, they have been bought and sold at least 100 times by various interest groups. If we just killed all the lobbiest many of our problems would go away.

 

Number two (and I may be a bit bias here) Is that no one KNOWS how to fix this and everyone has their own ideas. The main force of the Democrats a year ago thought playing Santa all year long would be the solution and they could just tax everyone (especially those hated rich *that weren't them or their friends* to death) to pay it off later. Problem there was, someone realized that if the rich, IE employers started losing their money it would trickle alll the way down to the poorest of the poor.

 

The Republican plan is to just stop spending money and just not add any taxes to anyone. But the Democrats (and some Republicans) LIKE playing Santa (especially to those groups they owe their SOULS to) and don't want to let those groups down. So they fight... and nothing gets done.

 

And today... the economy crashes and burns... AGAIN because of it.

 

And one thing that bothers me...

 

THIS ECONOMY IS NO ONE ADMINISTRATIONS FAULT!!!

 

(starting when I paid attention)

Clinton made those trade deals for the "World Economy"... which lowered tarrifs on foreign goods and made even MORE American companies "run for the border", shall we say. Lower taxes, lower worker pay... WHY NOT!!!

Clinton also allowed "Freddie and Fanny" to do whatever they wanted... including many sliding scale loans to people who THEY KNEW COULD. NOT. PAY.

 

Bush did do the handouts (IE refunds) and did get us involved in some expensive wars... but this is the reign of Nancy Pelossi as the speaker of the house. In my humble opinion, Bush didn't VETO enough...

Bush also did nothing to correct the mistakes of the past... IE Freddy and Fanny

 

Then the toilet that is our economy begins to over flow...

 

Bush does start the bailout trend, granted.

 

Obama is President.

Bailouts

Trying their darnedest to pass that moronic EPA bill which would have killed the economy dead should it have passed

Obama care

More wars (including the "not war")

Scaring Businessmen to death with threatened taxes, not knowing WHAT they would be taxed and NO INSENTIVES TO HIRE PEOPLE...

 

say it with me...

 

IDIOTS!!!!

 

As for stuff before Clinton... I'm sure older and wiser folks than I would be happy to tell you how the Presidents (and congress) of their time screwed up.

The bailouts where not Obama's issue really. The bailouts would have happened with anyone.

 

I agree with most of your post.

 

The tax thing is where we disagree. Giving tax cuts to multi-national corporations does not make them hire people, why would they do that? Raising their taxes won't make them fire people. We have been giving huge tax cuts to corporations for a few years, and they are outsourcing jobs and not hiring. Also very few rich people employ anyone. That is left to lower management.

[LadyMilla]

If the numbers are true, the top 10 percent of the US society pay about 68 percent of the taxes. 50 percent of the population who are around and below the median income level pay only 3 percent of the taxes. Now guess whose interests the government will represent: it would be a fool to bite the hand that feeds it. So except a continuing trend where the government caters to the rich, hoping that they will start to invest and pull the economy out of the depression.

 

Consider the fact that the revenue increase of the middle class lags behind that of the top 10 percent (from what I read, this statement is not debated, only the extent of the difference). Now consider that at some point in the future, the government will be forced to deal with the debt problem. The price will be paid again by the everybody else but the upper 10, and will be felt as a severe blow by the middle and lower classes, further widening the gap - but what is worse, it will impact morale: the American Dream will slowly vanish. Today, unless I'm drawing my information from absolutely rubbish sources, "work hard and get rich" means "study hard and get rich". The rich will afford elite universities, but with the government probably cutting back outlays far and wide, public education as a whole will also feel the axe - the chances of rising to the upper class from anywhere lower will diminish.

 

The dollar has already started to weaken, Swiss Frank is going up - after a while investors will withdrew money from the US and from dollar funds and convert their reserves into Swiss Frank, which will further weaken the dollar. This process may easily start a cascade effect, leading to a very deep global economic crisis.

 

I do hope that I'm overly pessimistic but recent events did very little to improve my mood.

 

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[mellowtraumatic]

This whole debt ceiling thing is just a distraction, it was raised twice under Bush without being a national news story for a week.

 

According to what I've read, during Bush Jr.'s admin, the debt ceiling was raised seven times. I don't remember hearing about any of those times. *lol* I wonder how much of a fuss was raised when Clinton did it (5 times) , or Reagan (18 times), and I think it's been raised a couple of times already since Obama became president.

[JimboUK]

The US has just lost its AAA credit rating, the markets are obviously not impressed with either side.

[HeyYou]

Yeah, we are headed for a crash, and we are going to take the world down the toilet with us. Only then, will washington maybe wake up, and smell the coffee.