Financial News

[StrangeSox]

If I had faith that it could be structured properly and not accidentally blow up, I'd favor some sort of plan that includes automatic triggers that phases in tax increases based on economic conditions.

[NorthSideSox72]

Except there's no good reason to raise taxes right now.

There is one huge good reason, and that is deficit and debt. That doesn't mean it is the best idea of course - but to say there is no good reason, is missing the elephant in the room.

 

[bmags]

There is one huge good reason, and that is deficit and debt. That doesn't mean it is the best idea of course - but to say there is no good reason, is missing the elephant in the room.

 

The debt doesn't need to be dealt with while there is 8% unemployment and 20 year borrowing rates are negative or under 1%.

[NorthSideSox72]

The debt doesn't need to be dealt with while there is 8% unemployment and 20 year borrowing rates are negative or under 1%.

That is one argument to be made. That doesn't make your statement any less false. There is a huge reason for it, but that reason may not outweigh the reasons not to.

 

[StrangeSox]

Getting more people back to work and contributing to the GDP will boost tax revenues and cut safety net expenditures. That's a good start on the deficit and certainly a much more pressing problem than how the budget will look in 10-20 years.

 

The projected deficit numbers themselves are largely due to increased medical expenditures, but there is some contention that the CBO's model accurately projects these costs. If there model is seriously overestimating future health care costs, then we don't really have a future deficit problem at all.

[Jake]

People are getting really worked up about the debt and they won't wait much longer for progress before just electing other people that are willing to fix it immediately instead of waiting for economic recovery to boost revenues/cut entitlements

[southsider2k5]

People are getting really worked up about the debt and they won't wait much longer for progress before just electing other people that are willing to fix it immediately instead of waiting for economic recovery to boost revenues/cut entitlements

 

The problem is the accompanying drain on economic activity from the debt when interest rates go back towards historical norms.

[StrangeSox]

any year now...

[kapkomet]

any year now...

 

 

The only reason it hasn't happened is because the economy sucks balls - so either 1) the economy picks up steam and kills the low rates, or 2) we stagnate here forever because there's no growth anywhere.

 

Nice set of options and I'm glad you sign up for the f***ed up misery we live in now.

[southsider2k5]

any year now...

 

I guess that would be under the wild assumption that the Obama administration can get the economy going again, seeing as they have pretty well failed at it for four years now.

 

 

[NorthSideSox72]

I guess that would be under the wild assumption that the Obama administration can get the economy going again, seeing as they have pretty well failed at it for four years now.

Assuming they can avert the cliff or big chunks of it... and then in 2013 a new tax layout is adopted... I will bet right now that the economy grows a LOT in late 2013 and into 2014. IF, again, they do those things I just said. Which they probably will, in some form.

 

Then the inflation snap-back begins in earnest.

 

[StrangeSox]

The only reason it hasn't happened is because the economy sucks balls - so either 1) the economy picks up steam and kills the low rates, or 2) we stagnate here forever because there's no growth anywhere.

 

Nice set of options and I'm glad you sign up for the f***ed up misery we live in now.

Once unemployment is crushed, we can begin worrying about future bond rates.

[StrangeSox]

Chris Hayes explains that no one actually gives a s*** about the deficit:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/ns/ms...hayes/#49778279

[Y2HH]

Chris Hayes explains that no one actually gives a s*** about the deficit:

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/ns/ms...hayes/#49778279

 

The way you talk, especially when you say things like 'any year now', you pretend that inflation and interest rates will never move again. And this...I don't even know how to word this without sounding condescending...but this is just absolute and total insanity.

 

That's like predicting the stock market, or unemployment, or the temperature, will never go down, or up...ever again...but stay exactly the same forever.

 

To even say something like this means you need to remove yourself from the conversation. Because you're doing nothing but detracting from it. If you don't want to have a serious conversation, don't have one. And when you say things like "any year now", like you've been saying, it means you don't want to have a serious conversation. So again, don't have one.

[Y2HH]

Once unemployment is crushed, we can begin worrying about future bond rates.

 

Again, it's a f***ing inevitability that at some point in the future, unemployment will go down and bond rates will rise. Whether than be 5 years or 10 years, or even 20 years...in the grand scheme of an economy, that's a very short period of time. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it because it won't happen in a week is lunacy...and it's part of the kick the can down the road game politicians play that's gotten us where we are.

 

I have some news for you. All of that will happen, and there is nothing wrong with discussing it, or thinking about ways to curb it BEFORE that time arrives.

[StrangeSox]

The way you talk, especially when you say things like 'any year now', you pretend that inflation and interest rates will never move again. And this...I don't even know how to word this without sounding condescending...but this is just absolute and total insanity.

 

That's like predicting the stock market, or unemployment, or the temperature, will never go down, or up...ever again...but stay exactly the same forever.

 

To even say something like this means you need to remove yourself from the conversation. Because you're doing nothing but detracting from it. If you don't want to have a serious conversation, don't have one. And when you say things like "any year now", like you've been saying, it means you don't want to have a serious conversation. So again, don't have one.

Did you bother to watch the video to see his point?

 

edit: "any year now..." is my standard response to ss2k5 and the general "bond vigilantes" argument that has been predicting hyperinflation for years now.

Edited November 14, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Y2HH]

Did you bother to watch the video to see his point?

 

edit: "any year now..." is my standard response to ss2k5 and the general "bond vigilantes" argument that has been predicting hyperinflation for years now.

 

Ignore the fact that I replied to your video post...my post wasn't about the video, it's about you and the way you talk on here.

[Y2HH]

Did you bother to watch the video to see his point?

 

edit: "any year now..." is my standard response to ss2k5 and the general "bond vigilantes" argument that has been predicting hyperinflation for years now.

 

Because the economy, and the overall world economy is in the tank right now is the ONLY reason inflation hasn't hit. It won't stay like this forever is the point they're making, the opposite of the point you're feebly trying to make, over and over, that the world will stay in the tank like this forever. I beg you to stop making that point, because it's not a point at all. It's ignorant and wrong.

[StrangeSox]

Again, it's a f***ing inevitability that at some point in the future, unemployment will go down and bond rates will rise. Whether than be 5 years or 10 years, or even 20 years...in the grand scheme of an economy, that's a very short period of time. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it because it won't happen in a week is lunacy...and it's part of the kick the can down the road game politicians play that's gotten us where we are.

 

I have some news for you. All of that will happen, and there is nothing wrong with discussing it, or thinking about ways to curb it BEFORE that time arrives.

 

There are more pressing problems right now than the deficit. The major problem, unemployment, directly contributes to the deficit. As we've seen all over Europe and perhaps most analogously in the UK, prematurely forcing austerity measures to close deficits in a weak economy only makes the problems including the deficit worse. It's not inevitable that unemployment will fall if we take measures that actively work against it.

[StrangeSox]

Because the economy, and the overall world economy is in the tank right now is the ONLY reason inflation hasn't hit. It won't stay like this forever is the point they're making, the opposite of the point you're feebly trying to make, over and over, that the world will stay in the tank like this forever. I beg you to stop making that point, because it's not a point at all. It's ignorant and wrong.

 

That's not the point I'm making, and it's pretty silly to take it that way. The point I'm making is an anti-austerity point that we should not be obsessed with budget deficits in the middle of a recession precisely because unemployment (much more important) is low and interest rates are essentially free for the government. Now is the time to borrow to get our economy going again and to do things we should be doing anyway like infrastructure. Nowhere in that argument is the claim that interest rates will never rise or that we should run deficits in perpetuity (though Modern Monetary Theorists would argue that we should). It is an argument about priorities.

[Y2HH]

That's not the point I'm making, and it's pretty silly to take it that way. The point I'm making is an anti-austerity point that we should not be obsessed with budget deficits in the middle of a recession precisely because unemployment (much more important) is low and interest rates are essentially free for the government. Now is the time to borrow to get our economy going again and to do things we should be doing anyway like infrastructure. Nowhere in that argument is the claim that interest rates will never rise or that we should run deficits in perpetuity (though Modern Monetary Theorists would argue that we should). It is an argument about priorities.

 

Absolutely there is.

 

When you say things like "any year now", you're saying it'll never happen. Contrary to what you're saying now.

 

Goal posts moving.

 

But my kick was still good.

 

Edit: If you don't want people to take it that way, then don't say it that way. But repeatedly saying things like "any year now" is you saying it's never going to happen. EVER. And that's simply not true, and it never will be.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Y2HH

[StrangeSox]

Ignore the fact that I replied to your video post...my post wasn't about the video, it's about you and the way you talk on here.

 

Maybe David Frum can make the point in a less-snarky way:

 

Since the loss of the election, we have heard an enormous amount of discussion from Republicans on television and newspaper columns about immigration as an issue...but all of us who are allowed to participate in this conversation, we all have health insurance. And the fact that millions of Americans don't have health insurance, they don't get to be on television. And it is maybe a symptom of a broader problem, not just the Republican problem, that the economic anxieties of so many Americans are just not part of the national discussion at all. I mean, we have not yet emerged from the greatest national catastrophe, the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. And what are we talking about? The deficit and the debt. And these are important problems, but they're a lot easier to worry about if you are wealthier than you were in 2008, which most of the people on television now are again, if you are securely employed, which most of the people on television now are. But that's not true for 80% of America. And the Republican Party, the opposition party, needed to find some way to give voice to real urgent economic concerns held by middle class Americans. Latinos, yes, but Americans of all ethnicities.

 

The electorate wasn't particularly concerned with the deficit, but the political press and politicians have been focused on.

[StrangeSox]

Absolutely there is.

 

When you say things like "any year now", you're saying it'll never happen. Contrary to what you're saying now.

 

Goal posts moving.

 

But my kick was still good.

 

conservative economics has been decrying that hyperinflation is right around the corner literally for years. Saying "any year now" is not saying that it'll never happen, it's saying that it's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about.

[Y2HH]

conservative economics has been decrying that hyperinflation is right around the corner literally for years. Saying "any year now" is not saying that it'll never happen, it's saying that it's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about.

 

I disagree, and apparently so do others. So maybe it's not them/me/us, but you.

 

Now, let's cut through the PC bulls*** and I'll tell it like it is:

 

Saying, "any year now" as a reply to people banging the hyper-inflation drum, is a condescend, snarky way of saying, "shut the f*** up you've been saying that forever and it still hasn't happened you ignorant f***ing morons".

 

However, saying, "It's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about.", is saying, "That it's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about."

 

One is open for interpretation, one is not.

[StrangeSox]

It's a short-hand dismissal of a bad argument that's been made for years, yes. There's no reason to point out in detail that it remains a poor argument every time it's brought up.