Our credit card is maxed out again

[themadscientist]

Our government is not asleep at the wheel. No, they have fixated on a telephone pole and put the hammer down.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... this-week/

HONOLULU -- It seems like the U.S. government just went through a debt limit crisis, but if you check the numbers, you'll find that Uncle Sam is running out of money again and will need to borrow more. Lots more.

The Treasury Department put out word today that by the close of business on Friday, President Obama will have certified to Congress that the National Debt is within $100 billion of the debt limit and must be raised again: up $1.2 trillion to $16.394 trillion - the highest in U.S. history.

Today's numbers show that since the debt limit was last raised less than five months ago on August 2nd, the National Debt has soared another $648 billion.

[bigbadberry3]

So where is this money going exactly...

[Bubba1]

So where is this money going exactly...

Besides Haliburten and Tiffany's?

[themadscientist]

So where is this money going exactly...

here is a place to feed the outrage.

http://www.cagw.org/

[IBCoupe]

Pfeh. Another manufactured crisis to provide an opportunity for a manufactured outrage.

[themadscientist]

The national debt is indeed manufactured, the product of decades of a short-sighted irresponsible spendthrift government drunk with credit. The outrage is genuine.

The fact that you seem to think trillions of dollars in national debt already on the verge of unpayable at current favorable interest rates and certain to spiral out of control as creditors become increasingly leery of US borrowing and demand higher rates is a non-issue should cause me to wonder about your grip on reality, but it's par for the course with you.

I hope you don't take such a cavalier approach with your personal finances. Creditors tend to share my view that debt matters and the more you have the less viable you are. Maybe spend less time resurrecting a thread to exhale derisively at cold hard facts and read a book, I recommend Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey. Start you off slow and then you can move on to macroeconomics.

[IBCoupe]

Reality check: nobody's cutting back on lending to the United States. Nobody. Bond rates are still astronomically low, even at thirty years. Regardless, that wasn't what I was getting at, but thanks for the amusing read.

What I was getting at is that running into the debt ceiling does not mean we're "running out of money," and we know exactly where the money is going: where Congress told it to go. This isn't a problem for hysterics, it's a problem for an adult approach to budgeting. The debt ceiling is a product of the inability of the constitutional framers to imagine a Congress full of retards: they gave Congress the ability to spend however it pleases, to tax however it pleases, and to borrow however it pleases, without actually having to ensure that the three levers balance out. Was this intentional because they were bored? Or was it unintentional because they never conceived that we'd be so stupid?

Either way, the "debt ceiling" is a manufactured crisis, and any outrage over the fact that we're about to hit it again is similarly manufactured.

[themadscientist]

Adult approach to budgeting? I think we are all capable of making ends meet out here in the real world and might be able to work towards a solution because we don't get to play these games. Congress, however just continues to borrow more money to restring the bows they play while America smolders up to a nice roaring fire.

The debt ceiling is less important than the debt. Your faith in other countries' faith in our solvency is optimistic at best and ignores the serious state not just ours, but the world economy is in. Take a look at China and take a guess at how long they can continue to buy our debt when their economy is teetering precariously. Not to mention their moves to consolidate ownership of hard commodities and divest themselves of dollar-based investments.

The music will not play forever. The Chinese and our other creditors are in too deep to just pull the plug. They have to unwind slowly or risk hurting themselves. You think this ponzi scheme will last forever. You lambaste Congress, but you sound just like them.

[IBCoupe]

Congress, however just continues to borrow more money to restring the bows they play while America smolders up to a nice roaring fire.

Because we, the electorate, say, "Don't you dare touch my taxes!" And then we say, "Don't you dare kill our jobs!" And then we say, "Don't you dare cut my medicare!" And then we say, "Don't you dare cut my social security!" And you know what we don't say? We don't say the kinds of things an adult says when they budget.

The debt ceiling is less important than the debt.

Agreed.

Your faith in other countries' faith in our solvency is optimistic at best and ignores the serious state not just ours, but the world economy is in.

I don't believe I'm placing faith in anything.

The music will not play forever.

Never said it would.

You think this ponzi scheme will last forever.

What else do I think, TMS?

You lambaste Congress, but you sound just like them.

In what way? You went off the handle when I wrote one sentence. Please, TMS, tell me how I sound like Congress.

[themadscientist]

You defend the mentality that our debt is something not to be concerned with just like them. You say "the debt ceiling does not mean we're running out of money," when that is not really the point. Devaluation of the value of our currency by flooding the world with increasingly useless paper is dangerous.

As far as what "we" say. I say the following.
"Don't you dare touch my taxes, until you eliminate the waste on the spending end and give yourselves a pay cut"

And then I say, "Don't you dare kill our jobs through ham-fisted attempts at central planning when you idiots couldn't last a day in the private sector where inept people get fired. Get the f*** out of the way and let the private sector drive the economy."

And then I say, "I don't get medicare and while you are at it break down the barriers to interstate competition in health insurance, cap malpractice damage awards so doctors can afford their insurance and won't have to run so many expensive tests out of fear and break up the hospital monopoly companies that wring the "care" out of health care and turn medicine into a rapacious profit machine and quit allowing pharmaceutical companies the ability to rape us on drug prices and protect their markets from competition."

And then I say, "What social security, you f*** raided it already!"

And you know what many people, but not me doesn''t say? We don't say the kinds of things an adult says when they budget.

As i said, I, you, most any hardworking American who pays their bills and tries to act responsibly could budget because we live in a world of consequences. Those insulated f*** in congress don't.

The really bad part is, if they suck it's because we suck. Not just the issues you mention which are mostly true, but the fact that many of us are not involved in the political process or worse just play at it and vote for the scumbag who says what we ant to hear.

[Encryptshun]

No, what Isaac is saying is that the debt *ceiling* issue is a manufactured crisis, and I tend to agree with him. There is a difference, as you said, between "debt" and "debt ceiling".

The way to fix the problem is not to get hysterical each and every time we need to raise the debt ceiling -- it's to STAY focused on reducing our debt even when the debt ceiling isn't an issue. And the way to do that is to ensure that the ramifications of our debt on our individual freedoms is laid out to the American people in charts, graphs, and color-coded leaflets that come from an non-partisan and apolitical source.

And by the way, the money for social security has been put back and, based on current retirement rates/ages, is totally self-funded for the next few decades at least.

[stebo0728]

And by the way, the money for social security has been put back and, based on current retirement rates/ages, is totally self-funded for the next few decades at least.

I dont know who's seen the movie "UP" by Pixar/Disney, but this totally reminds me of it. Theres a scene where the guy and his wife are saving up for a trip by putting change in a coin jar, but then things keep breaking around they house and they keep having to rob their trip fund.

[Encryptshun]

Yes, if we rob the fund to pay for other stuff, that will happen. However, there is enough money coming in to the fund right now to keep it liquid. I'm against robbing the fund, by the way, and when I found out that Obama was considering doing just that to fund the payroll tax cut extension, I was livid (and I support him on most things).

[IBCoupe]

You defend the mentality that our debt is something not to be concerned with just like them.

Where'd I do that?

You say "the debt ceiling does not mean we're running out of money," when that is not really the point.

But it was my point.