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Debt ceiling

Abdel

Economist
Joined
5/22/11
Messages
303
Points
38
Are you for raising the debt ceiling?

What would be the market reaction if it is not raised?

In my opinion, in the short run, some panic will take place but in the long run, it is the best thing the US can do.

Oh, and Anthony, I'm waiting for those major immediate cuts your predicted :D
 
How the market and rating agency view the credit quality of the USA would have more lasting impact than whether the ceiling is raised before the deadline.

We can agree that those rating agencies are a joke. These same agencies gave subprime mortgages a triple A rating.

Just look at the US : ''if we cain't borrow more, if we cain't go deeper into debt, we cain't pay our bills'' ......that's a triple A rating for you? Sounds more like junk status.

Some european countries are talking about ''cutting ties'' with rating agencies so they won't be affected by high interest rates.

New European ratings agency slated to open next year: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15250217,00.html
 
If you can't borrow more you need to decide whether you default or cut other expenses. Defaulting is a scare tactic. We could stop war spending, we could lay off government workers, we could cut entitlements, etc. Instead, we will default on our debt before anything else.

Rating agencies are giving the US a loud and clear message. Unfortunately, some people do not want to listen.
 
Raise taxes? You think the government deserves more than 1/3rd what a man earns. Sorry, but God asks for 10%, no way the government deserves 3x that. Live to do without.
 
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2011/07/26/congress-smoke-mirrors-spending-cuts/

There aren't substantial cuts in these plans and there won't be for a long time. One thing the "tea party republicans" are getting right is standing up to these crackpot politicians playing politics (albeit they're playing politics themselves...).

Congress is too interested in re-election to cut or reform medicare medicaid etc. I honestly think we're fucked.
 
Both party plans have no cuts. Both plans raise the debt by $7 to $8 trillions over 10 years.

It is like if I tell my employee I'm giving him a pay raise. Instead of giving him a salary of 50k, I'll give him one of 45k.

See, I was going to bring it down to 40k but since I only braught it down to 45k, he's having a pay raise.

That's how governement works.
 
Actually Republican presidents have driven this country to the brink of default (read: raised debt ceiling) nearly twice as often as Democrats historically...

... and Republicans led this country to win in the Civil War. What's your point?
 
... and Republicans led this country to win in the Civil War. What's your point?

The difference between what a Republican was even so much as 60 years ago (Eisenhower) and what a Republican is today are night and day. I remember Eisenhower was pro-union. Today, the Republicans of yesteryear would be blasted as outright socialists by the theological loonies in office we have now.

Hence the problem with our two party system--our only choice to keep those theological loonies is to elect a bunch of welfare-state safety-netters, who while still not even in my ballpark of ideal or good-for-the-country, at least claim they won't allow most Americans to fall through the cracks of our social framework.
 
The difference between what a Republican was even so much as 60 years ago (Eisenhower) and what a Republican is today are night and day. I remember Eisenhower was pro-union. Today, the Republicans of yesteryear would be blasted as outright socialists by the theological loonies in office we have now.

They would be blasted as socialists by today's Democrats as well. Obama and Bill Clinton are way to the right of a Republican president like Nixon (let alone Eisenhower). Both parties have shifted massively to the right.

Hence the problem with our two party system--our only choice to keep those theological loonies is to elect a bunch of welfare-state safety-netters, who while still not even in my ballpark of ideal or good-for-the-country, at least claim they won't allow most Americans to fall through the cracks of our social framework.

Who would they be? Not today's Democrats. As I'm fond of saying, there's no real American Left. Liberals like to masquerade as such, but they're a bunch of pathetic wimps with no real ideas at all. Merely lipstick on the pig of American corporate capitalism.
 
Republicans are currently the dominant force in Congress and decided to balk something that was previously a congressional rule, citing some amoeba-like socialism and cheesy cliches ("business as usual" ring a bell?) that the current president supposedly champions, when an examination of history paints them hypocritical...

The calls for cuts in Social Security and Medicare came from Obama, not the Republicans. Obama would like to use the Republicans' "demand for cuts" as the excuse for a "compromise," which he can try to sell to his Democrat base. But the thing is they're not asking for such a cut. They even proposed a 6-month temporary lifting of the debt ceiling so as to have more time to haggle over the details -- but for Obama it's key to use this "crisis" right now to make draconian cuts in SS and Medicare. This is one occasion when the Republicans are being demonised for nothing. Not saying the republicans are any better than Obama; merely that Obama is no better than the Republicans. There is a bipartisan ideological drive to cut SS and Medicare. Any old excuse will do.
 
Well in this case, the pig with lipstick is at least preferable to the pig without it >_<...

I mean I suppose you have a point in that Bernie Sanders runs as an independent in Vermont despite caucusing with the democrats because he actually is democratic-socialist. Aka farther to the left than anybody else serving in congress.

Frankly, my leanings aren't so much to the left as "to the opposite side of those who would sell us to the corporations". If we had a better "opposite side" here in the U.S., that'd be nice. But at the moment, it indeed is a choice of the lesser of two evils as you say--as I'd rather vote for the lesser evil rather than letting the greater evil take power despite being disappointed in the lesser evil.
 
But at the moment, it indeed is a choice of the lesser of two evils as you say--as I'd rather vote for the lesser evil rather than letting the greater evil take power despite being disappointed in the lesser evil.

Not just "at the moment," but for umpteen years. The whispered message of the Democrats is, "Psst! We're ever so microscopically the lesser evil. Besides, do you want Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann to be your next president?" To those who follow such puerile arguments I ask, "Tell me in what way does Obama differ from GWB? Military policy is the same (indeed has expanded); Torture continues. Economic policy is the same. Even the personnel in the two administrations is often the same." At least the Republicans are more honest; the Democrats have to "triangulate" more because of a different voter base. So they tell more lies, and engage in more hand-wringing -- while pursuing the same policies. Indeed, they often go further than the Repubs would dare go -- because they know their own base will stand still for it.
 
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