if The US Defaults and the stocks drop through the floor, that would probably be a good time to invest.... It's the United Fucking States, no matter how bad it gets it will recover. Bonds will be paid back. The world isn't going to turn into post-apocolyptia.
if The US Defaults and the stocks drop through the floor, that would probably be a good time to invest.... It's the United Fucking States, no matter how bad it gets it will recover. Bonds will be paid back. The world isn't going to turn into post-apocolyptia.
There's actually two ways of thinking about this. Personally, I'm with you, but consider it this way.
You go into a casino. You get $20. There's a special roulette wheel there. It will spin only once. It only has two bets you can make. "00" and "Not 00". The odds of 00 are very small. "Not 00" comes up more than 99% of the time. There's something else special about this wheel. If it hits 00, everyone in the casino loses their money, even if they didn't make any bets whatsoever.
You and I are thinking that we should go to the roullette wheel and bet on "Not 00". If it comes up on 00 we lose our money anyway, so we take no additional risk by betting on "Not 00". Even if the payout is very tiny, it's stupid to pass it up. That's why I will also be investing if shit goes way down. Buy low. The US will survive and it will pay out in the long run.
However, there is another way of thinking about it. Perhaps the right thing to do, if you can afford to lose the money, is bet on 00. Odds are that money will be lost. But, if something incredible happens, you will be the only guy in the entire casino with any money. The crazy guy. You can be the king of the world. The payout is so enormous if you bet on 00 and win you have to bet at least a little bit on that. Right?
"I think most of those countries are in Western Europe"
Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece are South Europe. It is worrying that you think a country that lies far in the south eastern arm of the continent is anywhere close to Western Europe. Ireland's been a fucked up place for a while. That's still but 1 in almost a dozen.
Holland is its own country now?
Fuck no. It's still a part of the Netherlands. That's not the only thing wrong with that map.
with two decades and counting of stagnation.
And they still have crazy successful companies and do awesome shit with science. Your point?
EDIT: The source of that map is quite questionable. Why did you use it? And not just, say, grab one of the maps of Europe from Wikipedia? It's there for a reason.
Hooray. We're still 14 tn in debt, we're trying to maintain an empire we never had, and doing so by trying to fight WWII against a world that decided it was done with that 70 years ago.
The debt part wasn't going to go away, but I am curious how this works out. Are we going to reduce the deficit at all by 2013? Or does this compromise just result in no new taxes and still managing to pay to service the debt, but not to reduce it at all?
If the committee finds $1.5 trillion or more in savings, the enforcement mechanism would not be triggered. That's because Republicans are insisting on a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority, and $900 billion plus $1.5 trillion add up to $2.4 trillion.
However, if the committee finds somewhere between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion in savings, the balance will be made up by the corresponding percentage of the enforcement mechanism's cuts, still in a one-to-one ratio.
Democrats say they're confident that the enforcement mechanism is robust enough to convince Democrats and Republicans to deal fairly on the committee -- to come up with a somewhat balanced package of entitlement reforms and tax increases. However, the White House assures them that if the committee fails to produce "tax reform" he will veto any attempt to extend the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of next year.
Unclear, though, is what happens if the committee does agree on tax reform, but in a way that produces insubstantial revenue. If such a plan passes Congress, Obama would be hard pressed to veto it, even if it took the expiration of the Bush tax cuts out of the equation.
At last hearing, Republicans were unhappy with the notion that the enforcement mechanism would contain a one-to-one match of domestic and defense spending cuts -- they want spending cuts to be lowered. That may be the final sticking point in this entire debt ceiling saga.
Full article at TPM. Here's what I've gathered: Republicans want(ed) a reduction in spending, no debt ceiling increase, and cuts to everything domestic except defense, while not increasing taxes or letting the Bush era tax cuts expire and ruin the economy for everyone who doesn't have millions of dollars just lying around. Democrats want(ed) to let the tax cuts expire, possibly raise taxes elsewhere, cut defense spending an equal amount as domestic spending, increase the debt limit a bit, and save the economy. Someone explain to me how the Republicans can still claim to be fiscally conservative? Do they understand math?
[Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican Leader]: "Republicans may only control one half of one third of the government in Washington, but the American people agreed with us on the nature of the problem. They know that government didn't accumulate 14.5 trillion dollars in debt because it didn't tax enough. And if you're spending yourself into oblivion the solution isn't to spend more. It's to spend less." Of course the outcome hasn’t come as a big surprise although many consider it to be unfair. According to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid the burden will be carried by the middle class and the poor, [Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader]: "The American people are not impressed with the no new revenue. The vast majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans think this arrangement we've just done is unfair because the richest of the rich have contributed nothing to this. The burden of what has taken place is on the middle class and the poor."
Recently I've noticed a difference between what the people say, and what politicians say. I do hear both saying we should cut spending. I don't hear anyone saying we should cut domestic policies, but rather military spending. Meanwhile on capital hill, the military budget hasn't been brought into question by anyone. I hear people saying we should close banking loopholes. Meanwhile, on capital hill, the Frank-Dodd act was watered down to the point of uselessness. I hear people saying we should give medical care to 9/11 first-responders. Meanwhile, on capital hill, the 9/11 first responder bill -- or as I call it, the Jon Stewart Act -- doesn't cover cancer.
Wow wee, looks like increasing the debt ceiling didn't do jack shit for the stock markets! Dow Jones down more the 4% since close on Thursday... GFC 2.0 here we come!
Wow wee, looks like increasing the debt ceiling didn't do jack shit for the stock markets!
Hah, that's simply not true. Increasing the debt ceiling was a necessity, and clearly would've already been accounted for in the stock markets given its predictability. On the other hand, just think about what would've happened if the debt ceiling wasn't increased.
Also, could you fix your account icon? It's annoying how it overlaps the first line of text in each of your posts.
Comments
You go into a casino. You get $20. There's a special roulette wheel there. It will spin only once. It only has two bets you can make. "00" and "Not 00". The odds of 00 are very small. "Not 00" comes up more than 99% of the time. There's something else special about this wheel. If it hits 00, everyone in the casino loses their money, even if they didn't make any bets whatsoever.
You and I are thinking that we should go to the roullette wheel and bet on "Not 00". If it comes up on 00 we lose our money anyway, so we take no additional risk by betting on "Not 00". Even if the payout is very tiny, it's stupid to pass it up. That's why I will also be investing if shit goes way down. Buy low. The US will survive and it will pay out in the long run.
However, there is another way of thinking about it. Perhaps the right thing to do, if you can afford to lose the money, is bet on 00. Odds are that money will be lost. But, if something incredible happens, you will be the only guy in the entire casino with any money. The crazy guy. You can be the king of the world. The payout is so enormous if you bet on 00 and win you have to bet at least a little bit on that. Right?
EDIT: The source of that map is quite questionable. Why did you use it? And not just, say, grab one of the maps of Europe from Wikipedia? It's there for a reason.
I'm disappointed in everybody, but mostly the Republicans.
Someone explain to me how the Republicans can still claim to be fiscally conservative? Do they understand math?
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/pelosi-boehner-debt-ceiling-deal
I'm sure he'll return the favor someday, right? Right?
Also, could you fix your account icon? It's annoying how it overlaps the first line of text in each of your posts.