Re: No More Treasuries


"Rumpelstiltskin" <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:sqvjv11p32fgtc5bju6gh7fi7kv5nvpju1@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 12:12:06 GMT, "MichaelC"
<mikecraney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Rumpelstiltskin" <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:57:29 GMT, "MichaelC"
<mikecraney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<bandwidth>


An 8-trillion dollar debt is, IMO, something well worth getting
"overly" agitated about. I saw somebody on TV yesterday from
the Republican administration saying that it was ridiculous to
expect we could "grow out" of it.

Then get agitated. That debt is due over a span of 20+ years, and like
an
auto with a balloon payment, can be refinanced ad infinitum as long as
there
are buyers for it. If the buyers ever fail to cover, then you
(belatedly,
IMO) CUT spending so current obligations match current revenues. If
you
turn
it into simple balance *** equation, one finds that one could
balance
the
budget by freezing increases for (ready for the shocker?) less than
three
years. THREE YEARS. Is somebody really saying that freezing all
budgetary
increases for three years only is going to throw this
fat-dumb-and-happy
overweight and overconsumptive country into such a tizzy that we'll
never
recover?




I didn't mention freezing budgetary increases or freezes.
I was only arguing for sanity, which is making the inputs
more or less match the outputs, rather than runaway
charging up the credit card. Most people didn't get
anything visible out of the tax cuts, and we didn't need
this Iraq war.

I'm all for sanity. I'm just pointing out that hitting the panic button
isn't called for (yet).


I didn't notice myself hitting the panic button, but I sure noticed
you hitting it in your previous post, barking orders and assuming
that of course we Californians must do what you say based on
how you see the world. What did you want me to do, clap my
heels together, salute, and say "Ja, mein Führer"?

That's not the panic button -- that's just a lack of patience with people
who would put obstacles in front of the general welfare of the citizens of
the nation. Look, I'm all for accomodating environmental issues when the
cost/benefit ratio says that great benefit is derived for society at minor
cost. If the ratio flips, so should our positions.




***.

Jeffrey Beaver (Formerly El Castor and I like his old moniker
better) harumphed elsewhere that if Al Gore had become Prez,
things would have ended up the same. I disagree: (1) no war
in Iraq (2) no huge deficit-creating tax cuts - that's most of the
annual deficits right there.

That's about 2/3 of it. That's your best case, assuming that Algore
wouldn't
have found something else to spend money on. Considering the need all
politicians have to appease their masters, are you certain that he
would
have stopped?

Clinton didn't engage in borrow-and-spend like this, and, as
noted, Gore would have been unlikely to cut taxes mostly for
the wealthiest without cutting spending.

Experience with Democratic administrations shows a disregard for budgtary
discipline similar to that of the current administration.

That may have been more true pre-Reagan, though the democrats
didn't run up deficits with such total abandon as Reagan, and the
Bushes. You can complain about "Tax and spend", though it seems
to me that, unlike now, we used to see some results, granted not
enough, from what we spent, but I don't see that much now.

I think you've made an important point. If you have no social services, it
stands to reason that the first few programs that are put into place will
have great positive impact. However, as you add programs over time, the law
of diminishing returns takes over.

Anyway, "Borrow and spend" is what has gotten the country into
the dire fiscal strait it's in now, and that's mostly all your boys.

Not by the way I see it. A real, cost-cutting politician is an endangered
species on either side of the aisle.



It's not
productivive to play "what-if" concerning an Algore presidency beyond the
fact that (1) there still would have been a stock market bust causing
increased unemployment and a decrease in tax revenues, (2) there still
would
have been a 9/11 necessitating a HS Agency an Afghan adventure, and (3)
there is no reason to think that Algore would not have continued the
free-trade policies with China and India, seeing that they were cut
during
the Clinton administration. To me, that *still* adds up to a fairly
shitty
period of time between 2001-2003.

I don't think many
people other than the Bush team would have gone to war
against Iraq on false pretenses (and we know for sure now
that they were false pretenses - enough of the
counterinformation that was available to Bush has now come
to light, though Hans Blix should have been enough if the
WMD reason used to persuade the public to go along had
ever been the real reason.)

Don't want to talk about Iraq. I'm glad we're there. EOF.



Jeff would respond that the tax cuts
prompted the recovery, but I'm not impressed with this
"recovey" - it looks to me like a continuation of one of the
longest recessions ever, and we're now also saddled with huge
debt, and what once kept the USA rich is now largely going
overseas. I don't how much better a Democratic administration
would be, but it's hard to imagine how it could have been worse.

You're not going to get an ardent defense of the GOP's economic
performance
from me. Nobody has raised spending faster over a short period of
time,
and
the loan we've taken out for the infernal drug plan is truly insane.
(Noting, however, that the Dems' critcisim of it was that it wasn't
big
enough.)


Not big enough to cover the expenses of the Bush drug
plan is different from just "not big enough". Hillary Clinton's
drug plan was completely different. It's doubtful she'd have
handed a plate of goodies to the drug companies while
blindfolded, for one thing. Her plan would have been
expensive, but unlike Bush she didn't pretend otherwise,
and it would have done the job, unlike Bush's.

Rubbish. The plan that got passed didn't look anything like what Bush
proposed. It was a slapjack bucket of programs designed to draw just
enough
votes to pass. Anything Bilary would propose would be likewise
bastardized,
with the caveat that it would have included competitive bidding on drug
pricing, I'll grant.

Maybe so, I didn't follow or don't remember whatever
preliminary arguments there were before we got the
scheme that has actually been put in place now.

It was a legislative nightmare.



<snip>



You don't sound like the same guy as earlier.

I don't think the solution to screwing things up is to screw
them up some more.

How is keeping people in the North U.S. alive "screwing it up?" You're
demonstrating one of the reasons why democratic liberalism is a dying
political philosophy worldwide -- it ignores reality for ideology.



Ja, mein Führer?

Sorry, but the opposite of democratic liberalism is not fascism -- it's
anarchy.(I know that's a popular talking point amongst the lefties, but it
simply exposes whoever started it as uneducated WRT political science.)
Democratic liberalism, LIKE conservativism and fascism, requires a strong
central government by which all societal members are *required* by law to
adhere to the dictates of that goverment, to the point of coersion if
necessary.

The opposite of that are small-goverment libertarians or anarchists,
depending on which way your head turns when you're looking in the other
direction.


Last I heard, California hadn't been invaded by Texas, though
it's possible it has, with Bush 2, and I just hadn't really
appreciated that yet because the first orders hadn't been issued.

When somebody tells me "Lead, follow, or get out of the way",
my response is "Who the hell are you and what are you doing
on my land?" Sometimes that doesn't work, as with Poland.

Now. that's more libertarian. Make up your mind.... :-)

Mike




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