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Thats over the term of his presidency, not ONE year
<sanrene>'s support of a claim for a $17 trillion cumulative deficit remains ridiculous on that basis as well. It's just more desperate over-reach by a right-wing starved for any legitimate argument at all.
Sheesh! Maybe people could at least recognize what TARP is and isn't. And maybe one day they could recognize that spending is a commitment of 100 cents out of every dollar while guarantees are a commitment of as little as a few cents out of every dollar. This is yet another bag of hot air argument, the only kind the right-wing can actually manage.
I know darn well the difference between a committment, and a guarantee, do you understand that guarantees are liabilities that need to be accounted for on a liability spreadsheet and increased overall borrowing costs?
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Originally Posted by saganista
What??? This is patently absurd. If I promise my wife that we will buy some nice new car in 2012, I do not start making monthly payments on it now, nor does that promise limit my current access to credit in any way. Your claim goes well beyond mere fluff and into the realm of the completely ridiculous.
One posting your claiming that deficits increased to $1.85 trillion due to "stimuls" the next your claiming that has no affect, make up your mind, your getting dizzy changing stories..
If you allocate funds for 2012, liabilities are on the book until 2012 when the asset is acquired. What makes this worse is that in 2012, no assets are going to be acquired, its a TOTAL expense. The fact that you dont understand this is not surprising. Never had to budget long term liabilities have you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
More lack of understanding. The $400 billion number includes the ending of more Bush gimmicks than merely those associated with Iraq and Afghanistan. Other significant deficit-disguising ploys that have been abandoned are associated with Medicare reimbursements to physicians, forward accounting for domestic natural disasters, and AMT relief for less than upper-income taxpayers. Bush simply assumed that all of these costs would come to $0 every year, even though there has never been any relevant year in which they did. Obama's budget recognizes that while the final numbers for these costs can't be known in advance, the fact that they will occur can, so a reasonable placeholder for each of them is included within the budget numbers. See how much more honest that is???
Ahh, back to the $400 billion total, which if added to the "real" deficits of Bush = $859 billion, remind me again what Obamas deficts are? $1.85 TRILLION.. Not even your own fuzzy math does $859 billion = $1.85 trillion, so where did the other money go? Remind me who spent it again
<sanrene>'s support of a claim for a $17 trillion cumulative deficit remains ridiculous on that basis as well. It's just more desperate over-reach by a right-wing starved for any legitimate argument at all.
If I recall, thats a CBO projection, not sanrenes.. Or are you calling the CBO "Republican partisan hacks"?
I don't claim to know a lot about the actual numbers, but I will common sense this one. If I am maxed out in credit card debt, should I just keep getting more credit cards and max them out too? When I die, is my credit card debt forgiven or do my kids have to pay them back? If my neighbor had maxed out credit cards and he/she can't make the payments, should all the other neighbors in the neighborhood be responsible for paying them back for him/her?
Individuals, businesses, and governments are distinct and separate entities with very different economic capacities and limitations. This is why study of the economy is split into the household, corporate, and public sectors. Nobody will ever get anywhere by trying to apply the rules of one sector to operations in another. A household that tries to operate like a government will fail. A government that tries to operate like a household will fail.
Some examples. A household cannot continuously roll over its debt. A govenrment can. The indivduals comprising a household eventually die. A government does not. A household may not feel any resposibility toward other households. A government has a responsibility to all households. A government may impose taxes and issue and maintain currency. A household may not. These and other differences mean that common-sense understandings of household operations may have no bearing at all upon government operations and vice versa. The best advice is simply to abandon the notion that they might, treating households as if they were households, and governments as if they were governments.
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Originally Posted by JDTD
I honestly don't get the math. So...for people who think all this spending is going to somehow "save" us, please explain in simple terms. I think like the short paragraph above. Apparently, I'm not as smart as some of the people who think this is a good idea. Thanks!
The problem at the moment is that in the wake of credit and financial market disasters resulting from accumulated gross malfeasance in the corporate and government sectors, both households and businesses have signifcantly cut back on spending. These reductions in spending produce a reduction in total demand, and as businesses do not like to produce supply unless there is a demand for it, they react by cutting back spending further, leading to a loss of more jobs that causes household spending to fall further, thereby further weakening demand, and then we start all over again. With two of the three sectors caught in what is sometimes described as a negative-feedback loop, it is only the third sector -- government -- that can act to break the cycle. Significant government spending creates signifcant new demand which results in new business spending, more jobs, and higher household spending that further increases demand, and then we start all over again.
This leaves a lot out, but maybe it serves as some sort of overview.
3. I haven't done my economic analysis of letting these companies fail. That's why I asked. Again...not answered. Let's hear it. Give me a simple analogy to help me understand.
Various people have, and such analyses lead inevitably to indications of one form or another of global economic collapse -- as in very signficant declines in worldwide economic activity and resulting levels of real losses that would take decades, not years, to recover from. The underlying problem is sometimes labeled "systemic risk" and it results in part from the greatly increased levels of interconnectedness that globalization in its few decades of significant operation has brought about. That results in a rebirth of the old "Domino Theory", but in the economic world, that theory has a very hard reality. AIG might be the classic case. If it had been allowed to fail, many major US banks and most major European banks would have failed as well. Each of those would have dragged other institutions down with it, and the resulting net loss of both wealth and credit availability in other (i.e., Main Street) economic sectors would have had disastrous effects.
Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail partly because there really wasn't any legitmate legal basis on which the government could have acted in their particular case, and partly because it seemed like somebody had to fail simply as a notice that the government wasn't just going to save everybody in sight regardless of how badly they might have behaved. The result of that one rather small failure was immediate, widespread, and entirely negative.
It's all well and good to claim some sort of outrage that crooks are being somehow helped here while law-abiding types are having to pick up the tab. It would be better to realize that law-abiding types are getting a bargain in the deal. If help to the crooks were to have been denied, the price to be paid by the rest of us would have increased ten-fold...perhaps a hundred-fold. Your two choices here are bad on the one hand and absolutely terrible on the other. Which will it be?
Haha, people are attempting that now - to say the stimulus failed, before its really begun.
I understand reluctance to spend.
I question the timing of people's decision of when to start paying attention to spending.
And I question the knowledge of someone who makes generic claims of "outrageous spending" without realizing that 80% of it would have occurred regardless of who was elected president, or whether or not the stimulus ever existed.
If you weren't complaining about the bush tax cuts which cost us 1.6 trillion, I don't understand complaining now about something that cost half as much and will be more effective stimulus.
Well...I guess it's because the "bill" has more than doubled in a short time, and it's going to get worse. Then...when you hear that the new health care plan is going to cost 10 Trillion (unltimately), you have questions.
Like I said...I'm no economic genius. I operate on common sense in this area (way better at other "things"). What is going on doesn't make sense to me, and it seems like those who actually still have a job and are "doing the right thing" are ultimately going to get stuck with the bill. That's why, in some countries, a small percentage of the population takes care of the the larger percentage, etc, etc., etc.. "Someone" has to pay for it, and America isn't about this.
Finally, there are two schools of thought here. For the simple reason there is a "debate" about this, shows it's not an exact science (otherwise a debate may not exist). You are betting on a positive outcome, and I still go back to "someone has to pay for it" (once again...beating a dead horse). No matter which way you dice it, a lot of money is being spent. I just don't necessarily think the people who didn't do anything wrong should be stuck with the bill, and they will be the ones who get the worst of it because they are the only ones who can at this point.
People on this site don't seem to care, or understand that our Country is "broke", and can no longer print "useless" money to keep ourselves afloat.
People on this site and in many other places don't seem to care or understand that the strength of any economy is rooted in its capacity to produce, and that the productive capacity of the US towers over that of any other nation, both in good times and in bad. This will not change in the short-run. Problems that could threaten our productive capacity in the long-run include some in the areas of energy, infrastructure, education, and health care and related entitlements. They do not include too few wars of choice or too few tax cuts for the rich. We are not "broke", and so long as we are able to focus once again on what really matters, we will not soon be.
Well...I guess it's because the "bill" has more than doubled in a short time, and it's going to get worse. Then...when you hear that the new health care plan is going to cost 10 Trillion (unltimately), you have questions.
Actually, every time the government estimates the cost of a new program, it is grossly under estimated for a reason, it is easier to sell. Health care is going to take up all of the defense budget, where else can congress find the money? We will be just like Europe with toy armies.
I wrote this on another thread, works perfectly for this 1:
Why is it so hard for most people to imagine that Obama and friends are PURPOSELY trying to make this country 1 big welfare state.
I mean how can anyone come to any other conclusion?
You know its really a simple idea in there screwed up heads...a liberal/socialist utopia.
If everyone is dependent on the govt. for everything...then the same people (liberal/dem) stay in power forever
The USA came off the gold standard in 1933, which trump 1792
Though it is popularly believed that the U.S.A. was on the "Gold standard", it is not correct. When Nixon closed the "Gold Window", the government suspended redeeming their notes with FOREIGN NATIONS. They had already suspended redeeming their notes held by private Americans, in 1933.
When an obligated party ceases to redeem their notes, we call that bankruptcy....
FWIW - in American law, real money is defined as precious metal coin. Money is defined as either real money or certificates of deposit (receipts) of real money. A note, which is a promise to pay real money IN THE FUTURE, is never money. It is debt.
BTW - the law defining a dollar has NOT CHANGED. Neither has the constitutional requirement for paying debt with lawful money.
"Dollars, or units; each to be of the value of a Spanish milled as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four-sixteenths parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard, silver."
"Eagles—each to be of the value of ten dollars or units, and to contain two hundred and forty-seven grains and four eighths of a grain of pure, or two hundred and seventy grains of standard gold."
--- Sec. 9, Coinage Act of 1792, April 2, 1792
According to Title 31 of the U.S. code, a silver dollar complies with the original Coinage Act.
Title 31 USC Sec. 5112. Denominations, specifications, and design of coins
(e)(1) ...weight 31.103 grams;
(e)(4) have inscriptions ... 1 Oz. Fine Silver ... One Dollar
(Troy ounce = 480 grains or 31.103 grams.)
Note: Millesimal fineness is a system of denoting the purity of silver. "Fine Silver" is .999, which is a higher purity than specified in the original law. However, .900 is equivalent to "Coin silver" in the USA, also known as one nine fine. That makes the 1 ounce coin in harmony with 416 grains of "standard silver".
(416/480 = .866666; or rounded up to .9)
In contrast, 'dollar bills' are not lawful money, nor were they ever 'backed' by gold. They were not receipts for gold coin, either.
TITLE 12, UNITED STATES CODE, CHAPTER 3, SUBCHAPTER XII,sec. 411. Issuance to reserve banks; nature of obligation; redemption
"Federal reserve notes, to be issued at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the purpose of making advances to Federal reserve banks through the Federal reserve agents as hereinafter set forth and for no other purpose, are authorized. The said notes shall be OBLIGATIONS of the United States and shall be receivable by all national and member banks and Federal reserve banks and for all taxes, customs, and other public dues. They shall be redeemed in LAWFUL MONEY on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, or at any Federal Reserve bank."
FRNs are obligations of the U.S. government to pay lawful money on demand.
LAWFUL MONEY - "The terms 'lawful money' and 'lawful money of the United States' shall be construed to mean gold or silver coin of the United States..."
Title 12 United States Code, Sec. 152.
Federal Reserve Notes are issued under the authority of Art 1 Sec 8 power to borrow on the credit of the United States.
Article 1, Section 8. U.S. Constitution.
The Congress shall have Power ...To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
(No, Congress does not have the power to CREATE money. If it did, why would it need to BORROW it?)
"Federal reserve notes are legal tender in absence of objection thereto."
MacLeod v. Hoover (1925) 159 La 244, 105 So. 305
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