US economic situation for dummies
 

I posted this on my Facebook page a few weeks ago but not all of you here are on my friends list, so I'm just sharing!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...00878281_n.jpg

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

WOW.... yeah, good pic! amazing isn't it?

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Good post Mems

I posted something about a year ago showing how much each person in the USA owns - It is scary stuff.

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Hard, truth that is.

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

The problem with Social Security is that I paid into the system to have that money when I retired. I said this in another topic, but go ahead and stop paying mine, right after you cut a check for what I paid in my whole working life, with interest, and do the same for everyone else that's paid in. Do this, and immediately stop pulling Soc Sec out of the workforce's pay. Do you see the problem here?

Social Security, as it was originally written up, is not an entitlement. Food Stamps for that 19 year old girl with 3 kids that simply can't keep her pants on, that's an entitlement. Paying her rent, even if she's living with her mother, that's an entitlement. Paying her health care is an entitlement. Paying money back to people that paid it to you in good faith as a retirement fund, that is not an entitlement, other than they are entitled to get the money they paid back.

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

DJI is down 254 pts right now... here we go.... spooked....

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

It's true. Because look at the reaction of the Greeks to the harsh austerity measures that the government has put in there - nobody wants to a) suddenly pay HEAPS more taxes than they used to, especially if they don't think the problem was their fault; or b) have their pensions, social security, police/military protection etc that they all paid into for years and years just get taken away. And of course nobody in government wants to advocate any of that because they will never get re-elected.

It's not even us - it's the generations to come after us that will deal with the problems that have been created all this time. And we can play the blame game all we like, like the supercommittee is doing now, blaming each other, but end of day how does knowing who was at fault help anyone other than the politicians who are covering their arses? It has to be fixed, someone has to show leadership and get it done. Instead we are paralysed by an inability to get things done, because people (even in this forum) fundamentally disagree on what needs to be done and how, and they all think they are right.

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Ah well, you could always classify pizza and fries as vegetables, that will make life look a bit less complicated. :P

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

http://i.imgur.com/fJW2l.jpg

I hope someone listens to this guy...

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Actually we aren't. But politically I don't think we can do the things needed to avoid it.

Put most tax rates back to mid-90's numbers and these problems start to go away all on their own in a short while. That's the actual start of a good fix. But, politically the anti-government crowd will keep allowing a polarized politics to keep winning the polls -- which inevitably means no reasoned solution can be reached. When you reward your politicians for holding firm on extreme policies, you can never expect them to work for any solution.

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Debt breakdown (trillions):

1.0 Prior to Reagan
1.9 Reagan
1.5 G.H.W. Bush
1.4 Clinton
6.1 G.W. Bush (incl. 1.5 wars and 1.8 tax cuts)
2.4 Obama (incl. 1.1 stimulus and tax cuts)

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Ya, Dubya blew the bank bigtime eh. As an outsider to the politics here, I find it ironic that he as a Republican has been responsible for the biggest increase in government spending in years and years. What was it, $2 trillion, $3 trillion and $4 trillion budgets? :o

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

Speaking of Republicans: (very much a long article)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...-rich-20111109

Re: US economic situation for dummies
 

BTW I'm reading Back to Work (auth. B. Clinton) right now, about 90 pages in, and it's some incredibly informative stuff. Despite being enigmatic to me during his presidency (having voted for him once and against him once), this man is as far as I can recollect probably the smartest president we've had that I can remember (I vaguely remember Carter) and in retrospect our country was in our best heyday during his time (possibly not better than the 50's, 60's highest-standard-of-living era, but it's arguable), with all things balanced as best they ever were.

Anyway, a good read. I've thought of posting some passages, and perhaps I will when I get time. But, in all honesty, I have never seen anyone so good at congealing history to assimilate where the nation has been and where it's going. He's also bang-on the most knowledgeable person about the minutae of politics (like, as in: who won X district in Y state during Z year, and why), which is something that is very DC insider stuff and has always eluding my understanding.

I will say this. Annually, about 85% of the US budget is "non-discretionary." That means that 85% is pre-determined based on, in order of magnitude, (1) interest on the debt, (2) medicaid/medicare/social security, and (3) defense. What that means is about 15% is really out there and available for cutting, but frankly those programs (SBA, Student Loans, Welfare, work training, etc. -- it's a long list) have been being cut and forced to prove their worth for about 30 years, so most all of them are more efficient than a private-sector alternative. For instance, the VA Hospitals and medicaid/medicare run with less than a 15% overhead/management cost, yet the private sector insurance runs at sometimes upward of a 30% overhead cost. Nevertheless, if you cut them ALL to ZERO, you'd still only be able to make up 15% of the annual budget. But we borrow 50% of the budget annually. So, 15% < 50%, so there is, quite frankly NO POSSIBLE WAY that the deficit can be reduced solely through cutting government, even if you cut it all -- new revenues are not an option here, folks, and you just have to know that.

Oh, and on the list above, out of GW's 1.8T in tax cuts, well over 60% of those went to the top 1%. Considering the amount spent on Afgh/Iraq wars, those tax cuts to the top 1% could have almost fully funded those affairs. Oh, and 90% of that 1.8T went to the top 10%, with next to nothing going to our almost-extinct-and-needing-saving-like-the-bald-eagle middle class.

More later? Maybe.

But I am beginning to learn how our overall state of affairs is not a mere happenstance based on market whimsy and bubble-bursting (like the dot-com), but is something that is a product of national policy and its effect over the years. Market fluctuations aside, there are things other countries, who are also living amid fluctuating markets, did that over a couple of decades drove them up on the lists of "good happy social things" and opposing things we did that drove us down on those same lists.