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Very slowly. A very large piece of the productivity gains of the past 15 years or so has come from being able to do things faster. In a digital world, credit backed by the rule of law is the only means of exchange that can keep up.
Let's not forget lack of freedom. If I want to sell my house for walrus blubber, as stupid as it sounds, it seems I'm not allowed to. If I want to mint a flashy new coin to compete with counterfeit fiat money I deem inferior, seems I'm SOL as well unless I want to go to jail or do it underground (at least for now, wait a couple of years for this to surface)
I understand the natural tendency to react with such vigor and partisanship, but my perpective does not go along any party lines. I never thought I pulled the strings because the Bush administration did many things that were not consistent with my wishes, so did Clinton whom I also voted for.
The partisanship is being injected from the right, which insists on a baseless ridiculing of anything the new Democratic government does. A thread here proclaims Obama is a failure after one week. He was tarred and feathered for the stock market not going up on Jan 20. People are opposed to the stimulus package because it won't work. They couldn't tell you how, when, or why it won't work, they just declare that it won't work. Expecting people to meet ordinary standards of conversation, much less debate, doesn't seem like such an outlandish thing to me.
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Originally Posted by Rggr
Yes, the plan has been in the works for months, and yes there are some elements in it that may have some sort of stimulating effect. It is also loaded with things that will not at a time where minimizing debt would seem prudent.
Why would minimizing the debt now seem prudent? What about this situation should make us be particulary leery of debt? Otherwise, the President has said many times that he intends to attack this crisis on many fronts. His proposal does that, while still getting some 65% of the funds into the economy within 18 months. That's a pretty good-sized IV-bag.
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Originally Posted by Rggr
If the situation is as urgent as you state and in need of government action, then that's all the more reason to consider it carefully and get it right.
When the consequences of inaction appear to be dire, proceeding with all due haste seems to be called for. Hence, all those lights and sirens on fire engines. At that, the bill has been months in the making, and instead of simply voting it into place on Day-1, four weeks worth of debate and discussion have been scheduled for it. That seems like a reasonable compromise between haste and due deliberation...
Fractional Reserve Banking.... People that save their money put a stop to the exponential factor of borrowing and lending.
It's not exponential...it's asymptotic. Saving by the way feeds lending, as whatever institution will want to profit by putting your money to work somewhere in the community.
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Originally Posted by BigJon3475
We have a system made on debt. There is no getting out of debt.
Why would the system want to get out of debt? It can make sense for an individual, but to a system, what's important is debt service, not debt itself.
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Originally Posted by BigJon3475
Of course it's not indefinitely. It's till we run out of resources.
Eventually, the sun explodes and blows the whole place back into the void as a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. But we can probably find things to keep ourselves occupied until then...
A goldsmith held the gold. He would lend on other peoples reserves... one day he figured out he could lend more than he had on reserves and make money till they made a "run on the bank" where everyone wanted to get their money out at the same time.
That used to happen a lot. Then somebody said, wait...what if we had insurance?
Buggywhips would be used to this day without the invention of the automobile.
Yeah. No demand = no consumption = no production.
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Originally Posted by summers73
Few wanted a cell phone or a personal computer before they were invented and produced.
Don't be silly. I can remember reading Dick Tracy in the 1950's. Cell phones were yet many years away, but the demand for two-way wrist-radios was already very high...
I should have been more clear. I should have said saving under the "mattress".
Not such a good strategy, though. You're going to lose money every year to inflation. At 3% per year, a dollar after 25 years is worth a crummy 47 cents...
The partisanship is being injected from the right, which insists on a baseless ridiculing of anything the new Democratic government does. A thread here proclaims Obama is a failure after one week. He was tarred and feathered for the stock market not going up on Jan 20. People are opposed to the stimulus package because it won't work. They couldn't tell you how, when, or why it won't work, they just declare that it won't work. Expecting people to meet ordinary standards of conversation, much less debate, doesn't seem like such an outlandish thing to me....
Partisanship is not isolated to either side. Both sides of the aisle have plenty of it. Yes, there are some unfair threads about Obama. There has been no shortage of those about members of the Republican party either.
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Originally Posted by saganista
Why would minimizing the debt now seem prudent? What about this situation should make us be particulary leery of debt? Otherwise, the President has said many times that he intends to attack this crisis on many fronts. His proposal does that, while still getting some 65% of the funds into the economy within 18 months. That's a pretty good-sized IV-bag....
I'm not saying that all debt would be a mistake at this point, but not taking on more than necessary would always be prudent. I think there are some good points in the plan. IF 65% gets into the economy quickly, then great. Why would the other 35% be a part of a plan that is considered an emergency?
If I needed to go into debt to cover some medical bills, I should probably do it. That does not mean that I should also get a new wardrobe and some new furniture because I've wanted it anyway and it's okay since I'm going into debt anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
When the consequences of inaction appear to be dire, proceeding with all due haste seems to be called for. Hence, all those lights and sirens on fire engines. At that, the bill has been months in the making, and instead of simply voting it into place on Day-1, four weeks worth of debate and discussion have been scheduled for it. That seems like a reasonable compromise between haste and due deliberation...
I agree with the lights on the fire engine. I think the fire engine drivers probably make sure they know where their going rather than just taking off out of the station and feeling good because they had their lights on.
Your point about the time for debate is a good one. I just don't have much faith in the debaters - from either side.
Partisanship is not isolated to either side. Both sides of the aisle have plenty of it. Yes, there are some unfair threads about Obama. There has been no shortage of those about members of the Republican party either.
Agreed. The differences, I think, are two. First, the percentage of highly critical posts that have a documented factual base as against a slanderous and undocumented base; and second, here at least, the number of posters who expect to be taken seriously who engage in the baseless slander.
To be clear, what I mean first is that it is more likely that an attack coming from the left will have some actual established underlying substance to it, while it is more likely that an attack coming from the right will be founded on rumor, innuendo, allegation, and perhaps particularly misrepresentation. And second, that wildly unsubstantiated posts from the left originate among a considerably smaller fraction of total posters generally considered to be on the left than is the case on the other side
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Originally Posted by Rggr
I'm not saying that all debt would be a mistake at this point, but not taking on more than necessary would always be prudent. I think there are some good points in the plan. IF 65% gets into the economy quickly, then great. Why would the other 35% be a part of a plan that is considered an emergency?
Well, for one thing it's sort of bad form to contract for construction of half a bridge. Particularly on the infrastructure side but elsewhere also there are projects that will take more than 18 months to complete. You can complain that those second and third year funds aren't really going to do much for the "emergency", but it's also true that the jobs those projects create will still be there two or three years down the road. And even if you just threw away all of the longer-than-18-months 35%, there would still be quite a bit more stimulus in 65% of the Dem plan than there is in 100% of the proposed Rep alternative. Those net operating loss carrybacks in the Rep plan for instance are typically scored with a stimulative effect of 0%. As in they have no expected stimulative effect at all. They are money out of the Treasury that just disappears into a corporate balance sheet. That's the same thing that happened to much of the first TARP tranche, and the same people who hate that outcome, love the exact same thing in the Rep stimulus plan. Doesn't make much sense to me.
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Originally Posted by Rggr
If I needed to go into debt to cover some medical bills, I should probably do it. That does not mean that I should also get a new wardrobe and some new furniture because I've wanted it anyway and it's okay since I'm going into debt anyway.
Suppose for some reason that your boss said he would fire you if you did not also purchase the furniture and wardrobe. To make the analogy work, there has to be some risk or penalty associated with the simple act of underspending. In the actual case, that risk is that the package will be too small to effect any noticeable change in either expectations or outcomes. Too small may actually be worse than nothing at all. In that case, you do start looking for what can I do here. That's where things like the National Park Service money come in. According to GAO, underfunding of NPS during the Bush administration has left an $8.5 billion dollar overhang of necessary repairs and infrastructure modernization, so you cover that. That's a lot of labor-intensive work, meaning that your going to get a good number of jobs, certainly the majority of them in difficult-to-get-money-to rural areas, that are going to be around for at least the time it will take NPS to get through making up for eight years of neglect. I've got no problem with that idea at all...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rggr
I agree with the lights on the fire engine. I think the fire engine drivers probably make sure they know where their going rather than just taking off out of the station and feeling good because they had their lights on.
Well, they certainly should have a general idea, and with GPS these days, they probably do zero in right off the bat. We don't have the advantage of a GPS system here though, so we are going to have to accept some margin of error, knowing that the clock is ticking and there is a cost-certain associated with every single extra day of deciding that goes by.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rggr
Your point about the time for debate is a good one. I just don't have much faith in the debaters - from either side.
Well, we can't go the the store and get new ones. For what it's worth, not much of the actual work is being done by the people you see on TV. Behind the scenes are some extraordinary people (on both sides of the aisle) who are and have been putting a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this effort. It might be good to recall that fact from time to time...say when Sen. I-Hate-That-Guy comes on your screen and says something stupid...
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