Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V

[popper]

Popper, just so I understand, who would you like to be the arbiter of who we call a person if not the SC? Personally, I might choose science. A zygote may have the potential to be a person at some point, but clearly it is not at the moment. It doesn't feel, think, isn't able to sustain life on its own, etc. I doubt science would consider frozen embryos people either.

sfam - I would like the arbiter of person-hood to be the entity authorized in the constitution to do so - the individual or the state govt's. If people feel strongly that they would like the federal govt. to do so then they should pass a constitutional amendment in that regard. If that were to happen, then you would get no complaint from me. The insidious and lawless encroachment on the constitution will doom us all and emboldens those that want to destroy the heritage that many have lost their lives to defend and preserve - that is "of, by and for the people".

Yeah, thing is, if somebody sues somebody else over abortion, and the court can't wriggle out of seeing the case, they are in fact FORCED by the Constitution to make a decision. This is one of those cases where the SC is forced to pick one of many, many different possible ways to interpret the Constitution (which is essentially mute on this issue), and since Congress won't touch the issue with a ten foot pole, there's no legislative guidance either.

In that case, the court should have simply declined taking it up as abortion is not one of the 18-20 enumerated powers authorized in the constitution. Previous to Roe vs. Wade, the individual states adjudicated the issue.

Edit - I should say they should have stricken the lower court decision as an infringement on the constitution.

[sfam]

Popper, as I understand the term, "bankrupt", it is the legal status of a person or organization that cannot repay the debts it owes to its creditors. Aside from recent attempts by the insane clown posse we call the republican house, there has never been a fear of the US repaying their creditors. So why do you label the US as bankrupt? If the US is bankrupt, then what do you call Japan? Or most of the G20 economies for that matter?

Technically you are correct sfam. Sovereign governmental entities, by law, cannot declare bankruptcy. That is why NY had to be bailed out by the federal govt. many years ago and why IL will have to come begging for a federal handout when they go belly up. States, like the federal govt., are sovereign entities and have no choice in the matters. When Argentina was insolvent approx. 15 years ago they simply stopped paying their creditors - they could not discharge the sovereign debt and therefore cannot borrow in int'l markets anymore (with some narrow exceptions).

I meant bankruptcy in the sense that our expenses far exceed our revenues and will do so in perpetuity unless something is done. The Senate budget never balances and continues to borrow forever, and so, instead of seeking bankruptcy, we will just continue to print money to pay our bills. Eventually, the dollar will succumb and we will look like a third world country.

So you really mean the country has more long term debt than you are personally comfortable with. Our debt to GDP isn't nearly as high as Japan's, but you still don't like it, even though our debt to GDP has been dropping in recent years. This sounds lots less alarmist now.

[Zonkerbl]

Popper, as I understand the term, "bankrupt", it is the legal status of a person or organization that cannot repay the debts it owes to its creditors. Aside from recent attempts by the insane clown posse we call the republican house, there has never been a fear of the US repaying their creditors. So why do you label the US as bankrupt? If the US is bankrupt, then what do you call Japan? Or most of the G20 economies for that matter?

Technically you are correct sfam. Sovereign governmental entities, by law, cannot declare bankruptcy. That is why NY had to be bailed out by the federal govt. many years ago and why IL will have to come begging for a federal handout when they go belly up. States, like the federal govt., are sovereign entities and have no choice in the matters. When Argentina was insolvent approx. 15 years ago they simply stopped paying their creditors - they could not discharge the sovereign debt and therefore cannot borrow in int'l markets anymore (with some narrow exceptions).

I meant bankruptcy in the sense that our expenses far exceed our revenues and will do so in perpetuity unless something is done. The Senate budget never balances and continues to borrow forever, and so, instead of seeking bankruptcy, we will just continue to print money to pay our bills. Eventually, the dollar will succumb and we will look like a third world country.

Erm, well, we've been over this before in this thread. Because we're teh US and we are awesum, when we borrow money from other countries we pay a lower interest rate than they pay us when we lend to them. The result is that we get about $100 billion a year for free because of our awesomeness, which we can use to finance $100 billion worth of deficit each year FOREVER. Yay us!

We can also borrow money from future generations, betting on the fact that technology will continue to advance and our productivity will go up, so that paying that money back will be cheaper to our future selves. You can tell that that's working if the debt to GDP ratio does not increase over time. I'd have to dig out the calculations I did last time, but I think it worked out to another $200 billion or so a year. So assuming a constant rate of technological advance (a big assumption, but whatevs) we can sustain a $300 billion or so deficit forevah.

Recently the debt has grown as a share of GDP. That's bad. We need to reduce the debt to about 75% of GDp and keep it there -- at 100% or more is where you start to see countries having to default on their loans, which is the national equivalent of bankruptcy. But as long as we maintain our awesomeness, we don't necessarily have to balance the budget each year.

We're not bankrupt YET -- we haven't defaulted on our loans. Due to "clown car circus" antics of the idiot Tea Partiers, we came close (and we are now paying higher interest rates on our loans as a result, losing some of the $100 billion of magic fairy dust we used to get because of our awesomeness). OMG THE STUPIDITY. Earlier in this thread I labeled it terrorism, but I think to be a terrorist act you have to realize the consequences of your actions, and I think the Tea Partiers genuinely had no idea of the magnitude of the damage their actions would have caused. I just have to shake my head at the wonder of it all.

[popper]

Popper, just so I understand, who would you like to be the arbiter of who we call a person if not the SC? Personally, I might choose science. A zygote may have the potential to be a person at some point, but clearly it is not at the moment. It doesn't feel, think, isn't able to sustain life on its own, etc. I doubt science would consider frozen embryos people either.

sfam - I would like the arbiter of person-hood to be the entity authorized in the constitution to do so - the individual or the state govt's. If people feel strongly that they would like the federal govt. to do so then they should pass a constitutional amendment in that regard. If that were to happen, then you would get no complaint from me. The insidious and lawless encroachment on the constitution will doom us all and emboldens those that want to destroy the heritage that many have lost their lives to defend and preserve - that is "of, by and for the people".

But surely you see that there are competing interests. A woman by definition is a citizen now, with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Forcing a woman to bring a zygote to term negates those rights. The role of the SC is to arbitrate competing interests like this. Deciding this on a state by state basis breaches equal protection under the law.

No, the role of the SC is to uphold the constitution. Like I mentioned before, there is a legal mechanism to give the court authority over abortion but that process was ignored in the abortion issue because the left knew the people would reject it in the form of a constitutional amendment. Maybe they would approve it today but not back then.

[popper]

Popper, as I understand the term, "bankrupt", it is the legal status of a person or organization that cannot repay the debts it owes to its creditors. Aside from recent attempts by the insane clown posse we call the republican house, there has never been a fear of the US repaying their creditors. So why do you label the US as bankrupt? If the US is bankrupt, then what do you call Japan? Or most of the G20 economies for that matter?

Technically you are correct sfam. Sovereign governmental entities, by law, cannot declare bankruptcy. That is why NY had to be bailed out by the federal govt. many years ago and why IL will have to come begging for a federal handout when they go belly up. States, like the federal govt., are sovereign entities and have no choice in the matters. When Argentina was insolvent approx. 15 years ago they simply stopped paying their creditors - they could not discharge the sovereign debt and therefore cannot borrow in int'l markets anymore (with some narrow exceptions).

I meant bankruptcy in the sense that our expenses far exceed our revenues and will do so in perpetuity unless something is done. The Senate budget never balances and continues to borrow forever, and so, instead of seeking bankruptcy, we will just continue to print money to pay our bills. Eventually, the dollar will succumb and we will look like a third world country.

Erm, well, we've been over this before in this thread. Because we're teh US and we are awesum, when we borrow money from other countries we pay a lower interest rate than they pay us when we lend to them. The result is that we get about $100 billion a year for free because of our awesomeness, which we can use to finance $100 billion worth of deficit each year FOREVER. Yay us!

We can also borrow money from future generations, betting on the fact that technology will continue to advance and our productivity will go up, so that paying that money back will be cheaper to our future selves. You can tell that that's working if the debt to GDP ratio does not increase over time. I'd have to dig out the calculations I did last time, but I think it worked out to another $200 billion or so a year. So assuming a constant rate of technological advance (a big assumption, but whatevs) we can sustain a $300 billion or so deficit forevah.

Recently the debt has grown as a share of GDP. That's bad. We need to reduce the debt to about 75% of GDp and keep it there -- at 100% or more is where you start to see countries having to default on their loans, which is the national equivalent of bankruptcy. But as long as we maintain our awesomeness, we don't necessarily have to balance the budget each year.

We're not bankrupt YET -- we haven't defaulted on our loans. Due to "clown car circus" antics of the idiot Tea Partiers, we came close (and we are now paying higher interest rates on our loans as a result, losing some of the $100 billion of magic fairy dust we used to get because of our awesomeness). OMG THE STUPIDITY. Earlier in this thread I labeled it terrorism, but I think to be a terrorist act you have to realize the consequences of your actions, and I think the Tea Partiers genuinely had no idea of the magnitude of the damage their actions would have caused. I just have to shake my head at the wonder of it all.

Zonk - I think your premise is inaccurate. I believe you're saying we would default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not increased. That is not true. We would have sufficient revenue to pay our debts and so there would be no need to default. What I think you really mean is that govt. charity (which is not debt) would have to be slashed accordingly.

[Zonkerbl]

In that case, the court should have simply declined taking it up as abortion is not one of the 18-20 enumerated powers authorized in the constitution. Previous to Roe vs. Wade, the individual states adjudicated the issue.

Edit - I should say they should have stricken the lower court decision as an infringement on the constitution.

Yeah, I haven't actually read Roe v. Wade. I'm kinda scared to, for the reasons you mention, because I might discover that it is in fact simply a landmark example of judicial activism that can't be overturned because, well, SC decisions are just really hard to overturn. I'd prefer to just be happy my guys won and LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!

[sfam]

But surely you see that there are competing interests. A woman by definition is a citizen now, with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Forcing a woman to bring a zygote to term negates those rights. The role of the SC is to arbitrate competing interests like this. Deciding this on a state by state basis breaches equal protection under the law.

No, the role of the SC is to uphold the constitution. Like I mentioned before, there is a legal mechanism to give the court authority over abortion but that process was ignored in the abortion issue because the left knew the people would reject it in the form of a constitutional amendment. Maybe they would approve it today but not back then.

Well again, if there are competing constitutional interests, the SC is supposed to decide. That's what it means to uphold the constitution. Very few competing interest questions require amendments.

[Zonkerbl]

Zonk - I think your premise is inaccurate. I believe you're saying we would default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not increased. That is not true. We would have sufficient revenue to pay our debts and so there would be no need to default. What I think you really mean is that govt. charity (which is not debt) would have to be slashed accordingly.

Oh no. Doesn't work that way. The debt ceiling is for money to pay for things that we have already bought. We would've defaulted -- full stop. The treasury can play some accounting games to keep that from actually happening for a few months, but after that -- GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. That's all folks!

[popper]

Zonk - I think your premise is inaccurate. I believe you're saying we would default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not increased. That is not true. We would have sufficient revenue to pay our debts and so there would be no need to default. What I think you really mean is that govt. charity (which is not debt) would have to be slashed accordingly.

Oh no. Doesn't work that way. The debt ceiling is for money to pay for things that we have already bought. We would've defaulted -- full stop. The treasury can play some accounting games to keep that from actually happening for a few months, but after that -- GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. That's all folks!

Respectfully Zonk, that is simply not true. The govt. can legislate a full stop to entitlement spending any time it so chooses. Entitlement spending is not govt. debt. Now they may choose to default on sovereign debt just as Argentina did vs. cutting entitlement spending. If they took that option, it would be a conscious and deliberate choice to default rather than cut entitlement spending.

[sfam]

Erm, well, we've been over this before in this thread. Because we're teh US and we are awesum, when we borrow money from other countries we pay a lower interest rate than they pay us when we lend to them. The result is that we get about $100 billion a year for free because of our awesomeness, which we can use to finance $100 billion worth of deficit each year FOREVER. Yay us!

We can also borrow money from future generations, betting on the fact that technology will continue to advance and our productivity will go up, so that paying that money back will be cheaper to our future selves. You can tell that that's working if the debt to GDP ratio does not increase over time. I'd have to dig out the calculations I did last time, but I think it worked out to another $200 billion or so a year. So assuming a constant rate of technological advance (a big assumption, but whatevs) we can sustain a $300 billion or so deficit forevah.

Recently the debt has grown as a share of GDP. That's bad. We need to reduce the debt to about 75% of GDp and keep it there -- at 100% or more is where you start to see countries having to default on their loans, which is the national equivalent of bankruptcy. But as long as we maintain our awesomeness, we don't necessarily have to balance the budget each year.

We're not bankrupt YET -- we haven't defaulted on our loans. Due to "clown car circus" antics of the idiot Tea Partiers, we came close (and we are now paying higher interest rates on our loans as a result, losing some of the $100 billion of magic fairy dust we used to get because of our awesomeness). OMG THE STUPIDITY. Earlier in this thread I labeled it terrorism, but I think to be a terrorist act you have to realize the consequences of your actions, and I think the Tea Partiers genuinely had no idea of the magnitude of the damage their actions would have caused. I just have to shake my head at the wonder of it all.

Greece's Debt to GDP is like at 170%, which bolsters your argument. But Japan, a stagnate but non-bankrupt economy is like at 230%. Clearly its more complicated than you are laying it out to be. We balanced our budget not more than 15 years ago. It took a reckless administration to get us in to unpaid wars we had no business being in, and unpaid tax increases and benefits added to our seniors to boost it up. Worse, they ended up looking the other way while Wall Street destroyed the world economy. Its clearly going to take a while to get ourselves out of that. But the bigger short term problem isn't our expenditures, its the lack of revenues coming in due to the slowdown in the economy. If the economy picks up, revenues increase, and the debt to GDP drops.

[sfam]

Zonk - I think your premise is inaccurate. I believe you're saying we would default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not increased. That is not true. We would have sufficient revenue to pay our debts and so there would be no need to default. What I think you really mean is that govt. charity (which is not debt) would have to be slashed accordingly.

Oh no. Doesn't work that way. The debt ceiling is for money to pay for things that we have already bought. We would've defaulted -- full stop. The treasury can play some accounting games to keep that from actually happening for a few months, but after that -- GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. That's all folks!

Respectfully Zonk, that is simply not true. The govt. can legislate a full stop to entitlement spending any time it so chooses. Entitlement spending is not govt. debt. Now they may choose to default on sovereign debt just as Argentina did vs. cutting entitlement spending. If they took that option, it would be a conscious and deliberate choice to default rather than cut entitlement spending.

That would be a conscious, deliberate choice to destroy the world economy, including ours. And while laws may be passed (they of course would be vetoed) by congress to not pay entitlement spending, the treasury literally would have no way of executing that. The system doesn't work that way. They literally couldn't execute that plan.

[Zonkerbl]

Zonk - I think your premise is inaccurate. I believe you're saying we would default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not increased. That is not true. We would have sufficient revenue to pay our debts and so there would be no need to default. What I think you really mean is that govt. charity (which is not debt) would have to be slashed accordingly.

Oh no. Doesn't work that way. The debt ceiling is for money to pay for things that we have already bought. We would've defaulted -- full stop. The treasury can play some accounting games to keep that from actually happening for a few months, but after that -- GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. That's all folks!

Respectfully Zonk, that is simply not true. The govt. can legislate a full stop to entitlement spending any time it so chooses. Entitlement spending is not govt. debt. Now they may choose to default on sovereign debt just as Argentina did vs. cutting entitlement spending. If they took that option, it would be a conscious and deliberate choice to default rather than cut entitlement spending.

So, what are you talking about? Yes, if we reach a legislative agreement to change spending, we wouldn't default. But that's assuming a legislative agreement that doesn't currently exist. And that legislative solution would be necessary because otherwise we would be in default, leading to a worldwide economic collapse. So you're saying we wouldn't default because the Tea Party terrorists would succeed in forcing us to sign an agreement under duress. If anything that reinforces my point.

[sfam]

Btw, here's a great article on misconceptions of deficits from yesterday's WaPo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/08/why-do-people-hate-deficits/

One of the many points is that countries with slow growth end up having a high debt to GDP ratio, not the other way around.

[Zonkerbl]

Popper, if you mean this bit of silliness:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/d ... Page3.html

That's just failure to understand economics.

Our magic fairy dust comes from our reliability as a debtor. When we promise to pay something, we pay it. If we promise to pay something, and don't, then our credibility suffers. Full stop. No amount of hand waving or splitting hairs is going to change the fact that we promised to pay for something and then didn't.

[Zonkerbl]

I keep waiting for Nate to jump in to say we could just inflate the debt away.

[popper]

Popper, if you mean this bit of silliness:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/d ... Page3.html

That's just failure to understand economics.

Our magic fairy dust comes from our reliability as a debtor. When we promise to pay something, we pay it. If we promise to pay something, and don't, then our credibility suffers. Full stop. No amount of hand waving or splitting hairs is going to change the fact that we promised to pay for something and then didn't.

Yes. I thought that article laid out both sides of the issue fairly. I believe that federal govt. creditors are primarily concerned with whether or not the govt. honors its debt. I don't think they give a rats ass whether or not we cut the Dept. of Commerce, Dept. of Energy, entitlements or overseas military bases. Why would they care? It doesn't effect them in the least.

[sfam]

Popper, if you mean this bit of silliness:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/d ... Page3.html

That's just failure to understand economics.

Our magic fairy dust comes from our reliability as a debtor. When we promise to pay something, we pay it. If we promise to pay something, and don't, then our credibility suffers. Full stop. No amount of hand waving or splitting hairs is going to change the fact that we promised to pay for something and then didn't.

Yes. I thought that article laid out both sides of the issue fairly. I believe that federal govt. creditors are primarily concerned with whether or not the govt. honors its debt. I don't think they give a rats ass whether or not we cut the Dept. of Commerce, Dept. of Energy, entitlements or overseas military bases. Why would they care? It doesn't effect them in the least.

In trying to implement this, it would be like trying to remove the sugar from a cake batter mix right before putting it in the oven. Feel free to pass a law, but there's no way to implement it.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Zonkerbl]

Popper, if you mean this bit of silliness:

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/d ... Page3.html

That's just failure to understand economics.

Our magic fairy dust comes from our reliability as a debtor. When we promise to pay something, we pay it. If we promise to pay something, and don't, then our credibility suffers. Full stop. No amount of hand waving or splitting hairs is going to change the fact that we promised to pay for something and then didn't.

Yes. I thought that article laid out both sides of the issue fairly. I believe that federal govt. creditors are primarily concerned with whether or not the govt. honors its debt. I don't think they give a rats ass whether or not we cut the Dept. of Commerce, Dept. of Energy, entitlements or overseas military bases. Why would they care? It doesn't effect them in the least.

If Enron owes me money, you bet your ass I care that Enron is insolvent. Even if I'm a secured creditor. I don't care if Enron is paying its debts to me -- I care that Enron is in financial trouble and is defaulting on some of its commitments. Or to be more similar to the debt ceiling situation, I care that Enron has suddenly decided not to pay its workers. I care if Enron's employees are rioting in the streets. I care if Enron is suddenly embroiled in a million different lawsuits with its various suppliers. I care that the board of directors of Enron is so incompetent, it can't decide whether or not to pay its bills, despite the fact that it has plenty of money. It matters. If Enron does not take its business commitments seriously and its leadership is in turmoil, and comes up to me and asks me for a loan, I'm going to charge them a higher interest rate.

You can't just wish away stupidity. Stupid is stupid. Defaulting on your commitments is stupid. It shows you have no idea what you are doing, you have no idea how credit markets work, and that you have no idea what the magnitude of the consequences of your incompetence is.

[Induveca]

Anyone blaming any "party" for the financial mess of the US is extremely misguided.

When I lived in DC I knew Democrats and Republicans alike completely drunk on debt/credit/mortgages. All of them equally oblivious of their foolish actions.

[hands11]

Thanks, Pine. This thread inspires me. I use it as a kind of crucible to develop ideas that I end up using later in my job. I can safely say that much of the success that I've had at work is a direct result of the discussion inspired by this thread.

Next week this thread will go subscription only for $1000 a month. Don't worry, you can write it off.

So what do you do again ?