Renzatic on 22/1/2020 at 20:39
The question is, who's gonna force us to pay the bill? It's mostly money the government owes to itself on our behalf. It's less "we borrowed a ton of money from the banks,and eventually we'll have to mortgage the house", more "sorry, we used the money you gave us for social security on war."
Now, don't get me wrong. Having a high deficit isn't exactly great, because eventually paying the interest on it will become something of a burden. But don't make the mistake of assuming government debt is the same as the debt you or I have. If there ever comes a point where it becomes a true problem, it means the economy is in the process of imploding in upon itself, and the American people won't care, because we'll be too busy fighting each other in the streets over the last bags of affordable beef jerky.
...and then it won't be a problem at all, because the government will probably fall soon after, then it won't owe money to itself anymore. We'll have a new government soon enough, with a brand new economy, probably based around bartering.
Wow. Perpetual growth capitalism really is a self-correcting system.
jkcerda on 22/1/2020 at 21:33
don't we owe china a bit?
why beef jerky? meat is murder my friend, try tofu instead.
Renzatic on 22/1/2020 at 21:57
Ain't no one gonna murder each other in the street for damn tofu.
And yeah, China owns about $1 trillion of our debt, housed in treasury holdings. Thing is, they can't do anything with it, since if they decided to collect on it all at once, it'd immediately devalue the dollar, sending both of our economies into a tailspin. Massive amounts of money would be lost all around for nothing more than a political stunt.
See, we're not really borrowing from China, at least not exactly. It's not that we're asking them to lend us a buck because we're short on change, but as a vote of assurance upon our mutual continued prosperity. Our debt with China grows as the dollar strengthens, because the worth of the treasury holdings they own rise in value alongside it.When it comes to foreign debt, think of it less as a loan, and more as an investment they've paid into us that we're obligated to honor. They're shareholders in the US economy.
jkcerda on 22/1/2020 at 22:07
CAPITALISM FTW......
I need to figure out how to explain that to some chinese hookers in a way that benefits me...........
driver on 23/1/2020 at 10:56
If meat is murder, tofu is suicide.
Tony_Tarantula on 23/1/2020 at 16:45
Quote:
The question is, who's gonna force us to pay the bill? It's mostly money the government owes to itself on our behalf. It's less "we borrowed a ton of money from the banks,and eventually we'll have to mortgage the house", more "sorry, we used the money you gave us for social security on war."
The problem isn't being forced to pay the bill. Runaway deficit spending works as long as you can get someone to buy the debt. Once they stop buying the debt then you've got massive problems and the only option the central bank has is to monetize the debt.
Quote:
Wow. Perpetual growth capitalism really is a self-correcting system.
It actually is. Capitalism is called as such because it empowers usury capital, which requires exponential growth to work while driving up the costs of almost everything in the economy through parastic "rent seeking" investment behavior. That's why it takes you 30 years to pay off your mortgage instead of 10.
Catholic Europe was onto something when they banned compounding interest.
**
RE: the election:
I'm noticing that people don't really learn much from either their victories or their losses. Ridiculing Bernie for example as a doddering communist loser proves that GOPers have learned nothing from Trump's election in 2016 when their own candidate was roundly dismissed by the opposition as an un-electable buffoon, and hence didn't bother to put up much of a fight until it was too late.
Most folks just want to indulge in righteous wrath against whatever they've been coded to hate and it clouds their ability to think either rationally or strategically. One would think that if Bernie managed to do this well despite the DNC machine being out to crush him that he would at least be granted the status of a cunning enemy to be taken seriously and dealt with as such. But if he gets the nomination then I suspect the GOP crowd will fall back to lame, derisive meme wars not realising that such strategies only work in undermining power, not protecting it where it already rests.
Most people don't even realise how much higher the deck has been stacked against Trump this time around by Silicon Valley. Those memes aren't even going to see the light of day outside of "far right" echo chambers.
But as usual not many people will be interested in playing out these issues on their merits as they appear to the voting public. They will be reduced to blasting people with heretic status just like the Hillary supporters did when people said "but don't you think Trump has a point when he says...".
And that's how you lose the middle.
Starker on 24/1/2020 at 10:42
Quote Posted by Starker
Adam Schiff may not look like much, but his yesterday's performance at the Senate trial was one for the history books. The way Sekulow and Cipollone blustered and lied was nothing short of Fox News, only for their arguments to be taken apart by Schiff moments later. If you're a fan of history, this whole thing is amazing to watch.
Case in point, Adam Schiff's closing argument yesterday, easily on par with historical moments like, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?":
[video=youtube;ecpF26eMV3U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecpF26eMV3U[/video]
Nicker on 24/1/2020 at 13:54
Who Knew? (
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-seems-to-think-an-american-invented-the-wheel) America invented the WHEEL!
Quote:
“We have to protect Thomas Edison—we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb, and the wheel, and all of these things, and he's one of our very smart people,” Trump added.
I'd hate to be the Trump staffer who has to break the sad news about Thomas Edison.
Starker on 24/1/2020 at 17:35
Never mind Edison, wait until he finds out who first invented the wheel in America.
It was Mexicans.Meanwhile, Judge Jeanine doesn't seem to understand what the job of a prosecutor is:
Quote:
(
https://twitter.com/JudgeJeanine/status/1219711606868914176)
Prosecutor Adam Schiff says @realDonaldTrump is not innocent! Way to go Democrats. No presumption of innocence, no constitutional guarantees. Welcome to America under Democrat rule. #outrage #prejudice #unfair #unjust #unconstitutional
Not that it really stands out at the propaganda network she works for:
Quote:
(
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/23/21078346/fox-news-trump-impeachment-trial-coverage)
As the impeachment trial got underway in the Senate on Wednesday, Fox News covered it in a way that gave the appearance of journalism but was actually propaganda.
In fairness, the network did cover the entirety of Rep. Adam Schiff's two-hour opening statement. But after that, while CNN and MSNBC continued to broadcast the trial, Fox News turned to spin.
Back in November, Fox News spun the House impeachment hearings by featuring short, out-of-context clips of Republicans defending President Trump that portrayed things in the best possible light for them. But that option wasn't available on Wednesday, as the entirety of the day was allotted to Democratic impeachment managers.
Starting with The Five, the network's early evening roundtable commentary show, and continuing throughout the evening, Fox News broadcast portions of screen-in-screen video of the trial. But instead of playing the audio, network hosts provided the normal Trumpian spin. So while someone who just looked at the screen may have concluded Fox News was covering the trial, in fact it wasn't covering it at all.
The network went as far as to broadcast screen-in-screen video of the trial during commercial breaks — but, again, without the sound that was necessary to make any sense of what was being discussed.
[...]
During the 9 pm hour — just before Schiff closed the day's proceedings by emotionally imploring Republican senators to have the same courage that witnesses like Fiona Hill and Alexander Vindman did in coming forward to testify, even at risk of their careers — Sean Hannity began his show by immediately cutting away from the trial, telling his viewers “none of this will matter,” and describing Schiff as a “lunatic” (a characterization at odds with other primetime segments that criticized the trial for being boring).
Hannity later played a supercut of snippets of Schiff's testimony that framed things in the most demeaning possible light.
[...]
jkcerda on 24/1/2020 at 18:01
PRAY/SAY/TELL Starker, what IS the prosecutors job?
