>> ^flavioribeiro:

Once you compensate for deficit spending, nominal GDP declined approximately 10% per year over the last 3 years, and oscillated around 0% for the 7 years before that. This has been masked by borrowing trillions of USD, which is the only way the government can stimulate anything. I believe the US does not have the production capacity you expect it to have, which would be required to produce a true economic recovery and not have GDP merely return to pre-2000 levels.

There's no such thing as "once you compensate for deficit spending" when it comes to GDP. If you do that, it's something other than GDP. You may make an argument for why you think some other number aside from GDP is a better metric of the status of the economy, but growth in GDP is growth in GDP.

As for the productive capacity, if we'd had a massive earthquake and tsunami, yeah, I'd expect our productive capacity to diminish. We didn't lose anything in the way of supply infrastructure though. We just saw demand for goods and services drop across the board.

In any case, my main point is that fixing the slump is the only way to ever fix the debt issue. I also think any attempt to fix the debt now is going to be self-defeating, since both raising taxes and cutting spending will make the slump worse, which will in turn only make the debt worse.

>> ^flavioribeiro:
I completely agree, and so does Karl in his latest video. The recovery process is going to be very painful, because Congress will most likely not enact a decent healthcare solution or a widespread reform to the tax code, and will defend special interests and military spending at all costs.

Again, you're blurring two unrelated issues together. Debt doesn't cause recessions, recessions cause debt. Debt might lead to inflation which can hamper overall growth, but right now we're seeing abnormally low inflation, even with short term interest rates at zero.

>> ^flavioribeiro:

>> ^bmacs27:
Also, if our balance sheet is so bad, why aren't the bond markets punishing us?

Because quantitative easing pushes down the yield on short-term bonds. On the other hand, it increases the yield on long-term bonds (since QE is essentially printing money, it raises the expectation of inflation in the long term).


That's what bmacs is talking about, and we're not seeing signs of increased expectations of inflation at all. 10-year bond rates are expected to settle at the expected 10-year inflation rate + some return, and looking out there today, I see it's around 3.6%, which is lower than it's been for most of the time they've been tracking it. See that spike in the middle? That was the last time inflation caused problems for the real economy in the US.

Well peeps, I'm not a fan of huge military spending either, but we live on a planet where, as nations go, America is the only moral force. We're the World Police whether we want to be or not. And that's on top of having the same legitimate interests--and therefore commitments-- around the world as other nations.

These other First World nations that barely step up with resources to solve international problems can go fk themselves, IMO.

The US should absolutley reduce the military presence in some theaters but not for the same reasons as the anti-war crowd. If you're going to fight a war, FIGHT IT. Level cities. Starve the enemy, cut his balls off. Otherwise, get out.

Unfortunately, because this world is insane: false morality, a refusal to accept collateral damage and timidity at the sight of blood has made us unable to properly kill, and the result is more good people than necessary get killed.

The money "saved" on wars belongs to the people, not government. The trillions for the wars do not belong to government schools or cowboy poets. They should never be returned to the federal trough for "local" politicians to hand out to buy votes, though that's what happens.

I agree with Obama that fiscally-speaking, earmarks are a drop in the bucket (especially with 60 BILLION being lost to Medicare waste, fraud and abuse every year). Yet I challenge anyone to look your unemployed neighbor in the eye and tell them why the cowboy poets are short on cash, or why a university needs a half-million dollar grant to study why men don't like wearing condoms<a rel="nofollow" href=" <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/nih-funds-study-men-dont-like-use-condoms/">http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/nih-funds-study-men-dont-like-use-condoms/"> (yes, that happened).

>> ^NetRunner:

I say getting a solid economic recovery is job #1. A huge portion of the deficit right now is due to the recession itself -- it lowers our GDP (and therefore the tax revenues), and it means a lot more people going on government assistance because they're unemployed and can't find a job.

Once you compensate for deficit spending, nominal GDP declined approximately 10% per year over the last 3 years, and oscillated around 0% for the 7 years before that. This has been masked by borrowing trillions of USD, which is the only way the government can stimulate anything. I believe the US does not have the production capacity you expect it to have, which would be required to produce a true economic recovery and not have GDP merely return to pre-2000 levels.

>> ^NetRunner:

It's also just one step shy from suggesting that we euthanize our elderly, process them into soylent green, and sell it to pay down our debt.

I completely agree, and so does Karl in his latest video. The recovery process is going to be very painful, because Congress will most likely not enact a decent healthcare solution or a widespread reform to the tax code, and will defend special interests and military spending at all costs.

I'm from Brazil (but I've been around, and I've worked in the U.S.).

>> ^bmacs27:

Also, if our balance sheet is so bad, why aren't the bond markets punishing us?


Because quantitative easing pushes down the yield on short-term bonds. On the other hand, it increases the yield on long-term bonds (since QE is essentially printing money, it raises the expectation of inflation in the long term).

I find the Libyan uprising inspiring and would like to see them succeed in their revolution. I have no problem with the UN playing a supporting role in this conflict. I'd (obviously) be against occupation, ground forces, IMF/World Bank style imperialism, the building of bases and/or the encroachment upon the sovereignty of a liberated Libya.

I guess the question is whether or not we should take the situation at face value or not. Iraq was obviously bullshit from the start, from it's bogus 9/11 and WMD motivations, to the outrageous no-bid contracts and lavish military spending, to it's secret prisons and torture methods, to the gang of corporations that lined up around the block to make a buck. It lacked international support and clarity as to what it's intentions were.

I'm not seeing any of those telltale signs of bullshit here. This situation is not a unilateral US action. It has broad international support. It's purpose is defined and limited in scope, and I don't see the carpetbaggers lining up. If there is evidence to suggest this is another Iraq cluster fuck, I'd like to hear it, but for the moment, I suppose I am "pro war", or at least pro revolution.

Cut the military budget? But then who would police the world? The world needs policing!!!

Wait a second. Isn't it the same people who complain about the US becoming a police state that defend military spending so fervently? I could be wrong about that.

quantummushroom,

I'm not in favor of drastic cuts to military spending, but you can't say that defense spending isn't playing a role in bankrupting the US government. It's the single largest component of the US federal budget once you take the portion of discretionary spending that is military and add it into general defense spending.

And FYI, you can completely balance the budget and have the lower and middle classes pay the same or less in taxes if desired. We've done it in the past. Basic math and history shows it's entirely possible. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Everyone - check your ideologies at the door, and try actually solving the problems we have instead of advancing your agenda.

>> ^quantumushroom:

It's social welfare/entitlements that are bankrupting us, not the military.
50% of Americans pay NOTHING in taxes yet receive endless taxpayer-funded benefits. How long can this last?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
How about this, we cut funding for both the Cowboy Poet festival and national defense by 50%?
$500,000,000,000 - 1/2 of military budget
(plus) $50,000 - 1/2 of Cowboy poetry festival budget
_________________
$500,000,050,000 - Savings!

Iraq has cost us 3+ trillion dollars.
Our yearly spending on defense is 700-800 billion dollars.
Our national debt is 14 trillion dollars.

Explain to me how this kind of spending has not bankrupted us.

Without massive military spending, we'd have plenty of money to invest in our infrastructure and citizenry. How many teachers could you hire with 3 trillion dollars? How many schools could you build? How many books could you buy? Beyond that, why is it that you support spending that kills people and oppose spending that saves people? Have you ever given that any serious thought?

From what I've gathered, the US's policy has been to only support nascent revolutions when they reach critical mass implicitly (or in this case where there is violent suppression, explicitly).

Diplomatically this is smart. If a country's people don't have the will to follow through with a revolution on their and the US actively plays a part in stirring one and fails, the dictatorship in power will likely become highly isolated. That will lock it away from modernization, insulate it from western investment/democracy and cause the country to stagnate politically and economically. Perhaps not to the extent of North Korea but suffering from the same problems.

Whether anyone would like to admit it or not, I would bet anything that the relations that the US had with Egypt's military was utterly instrumental in throwing Mubarak out of power. The civil institutions that it has being able to support on the taxes of foreign investment and tourism will probably help it from falling back into dictatorship.

Not to mention, the specter of intervention could cripple either a country's attempts at revolution or the entire movement. Obviously, Africa has a history of colonialism. The Middle East has much more recent and current interventions. If there was genuine intervention and US/European involvement beyond simply behind the scenes diplomacy and preventing violence against civilians and rebels, it would give the dictators a huge amount of credulity and a mandate for their strongman rule.

As far as it being a European idea, let's face it, even if European leaders led the charge, US involvement by way of it's military spending being greater than the rest of the world combined is pretty much a requisite for involvement.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

M'eh - as usual with most faux documentaries this one ignores quite a lot. The cold war of the 50s to the late 80s was no figment of imagination. There was a very real need there, and it has to be said that France, Britain, Germany, and the other pillars of Western Civilization were neither interested in, or capable of, dealing with the issue of Communist expansion. Quite to the contrary - as evidenced by their socialist policies most of Western Europe was - in fact - somewhat sympathetic to it.
So the U.S. stepped up to the plate, and via military spending & brinkmanship they contained China, and even collapsed the Soviet Union. It also allows governments like the UK to spend a piddling little 4 to 5% of their budget on defense and the rest on social spending. It also allows smug, self-satisfied twits in the BBC to act all snooty over the fact that the U.S. spends over 24% of its budget on defense while not pointing out the reality that the U.S. defense spending is in fact obliquely subsidizing their own nation's social spending.
But I do think that the U.S. military is long overdue for some cutbacks and oversight. Like most government programs, they are rampant with cronyism, inefficiency, and waste. Let's start by cutting all the military in Western Europe, and letting them pay for their own national defense, eh wot? Wonder how staid the BBC would be if we actually did pack up and do as they suggest and leave them hanging.


No the figment of our imagination was that all that military spending was to combat the soviet union. Notice how the military budget during and after the Cold War didn't drop a cent. That tells us that the spending wasn't really about the Soviets, it was a constant redistribution of wealth to keep an empire going.

Also beating the Soviet Union isn't something the brag about after we got a look at their internal economics. They were a 3rd world country twice destroyed by Germany that built back up and was still very flimsy. The US emerged from WW2 with literally Half the worlds wealth and remained almost completely untouched by the War.

Sorry but where the fuck did you go to college?

M'eh - as usual with most faux documentaries this one ignores quite a lot. The cold war of the 50s to the late 80s was no figment of imagination. There was a very real need there, and it has to be said that France, Britain, Germany, and the other pillars of Western Civilization were neither interested in, or capable of, dealing with the issue of Communist expansion. Quite to the contrary - as evidenced by their socialist policies most of Western Europe was - in fact - somewhat sympathetic to it.

So the U.S. stepped up to the plate, and via military spending & brinkmanship they contained China, and even collapsed the Soviet Union. It also allows governments like the UK to spend a piddling little 4 to 5% of their budget on defense and the rest on social spending. It also allows smug, self-satisfied twits in the BBC to act all snooty over the fact that the U.S. spends over 24% of its budget on defense while not pointing out the reality that the U.S. defense spending is in fact obliquely subsidizing their own nation's social spending.

But I do think that the U.S. military is long overdue for some cutbacks and oversight. Like most government programs, they are rampant with cronyism, inefficiency, and waste. Let's start by cutting all the military in Western Europe, and letting them pay for their own national defense, eh wot? Wonder how staid the BBC would be if we actually did pack up and do as they suggest and leave them hanging.

1. somehow they attributed this to "anti-americanism", like they hear from their right wing radios that democrats/liberals/lefties/socialists are always screaming about how terrible everything american is and burning flags, somehow in their brains un-nationalism=nationalism=fascism.

4. clinton and obama also increased military spending. we fought tons of proxy wars under the clinton administration and obama has just shifted the focus from iraq to afghanistan. and i can't argue that. they're right. even though they completely skimmed over 8 years of hyper-patriotism.

7. TSA porno-scanners. obama reauthorized the patriot act. also, can't argue with them, except theyre still ignoring the last 8 years.

8. so they're mormons, and historically, the government has interfered with the church. they see the whole prop 8 fiasco as modern day proof of that. and government is trying to legislate for the church, not the other way around.

9. no, corporate power is not protected. this socialist administration is infriging on them and the epa wants to bankrupt all the businesses.

10. unions are the enemy. nurses unions are the reason all of the hospitals in california are in trouble. labor unions are evil. theyre the mafia. blah blah blah. labor unions are fascist organizations funding the obama administration to take out the middle class. this list has a liberal bias.

11. obama killed all the student loans. there is no more access to student loans anywhere, eventhough i am currently living off of student loans. also, academia is where terrorist sympathizers hide out. which explains why her 2 most liberal children are working on graduate degrees in liberal things like physics and disability studies. and her conservative children didn't go to college. my brother and i are really the close minded fascists. if you point out my moms graduate degrees she says she got it during the clinton administration then she went and got a job with it outside of education. unlike my brother and i who don't actually have real jobs. even though my brother works for the military and the military pays for his education. nothing makes any sense.

12. they related this one to the ex con that works for my stepdad. he's finally off drugs and making an honest living and obama won't take his ankle bracelet off probably because he is a white non-violent offender. i'm not even sure what that has to do with the topic, but thats the anecdote they shared with me.

most of what they say doesnt make any sense to me. and vice versa. but i find if i break things down into really small individual issues then we agree like... climate change isnt man made... but it is bad for the planet to dump all of our trash in the ocean and bury toxic waste and cut the tops off all the mountains and burn things into the atmosphere. .... but there is not such thing as global warming.

or our border with mexico is a huge security risk and people in el paso are terrified of the drug wars raging in juarez and we need to deport all the undocumented workers and close our border for good until mexico sorts their shit out.
but women and children who flee from mexico are refugees and should be treated as such.

even when we talk about anarchism, they like anarchism. but if you were to say i was left wing and had radical leanings... they'd freak the fuck out.

so their values and morals are mostly intact, and theyre mostly just like mine... we just use different languages and theyre not worried about atrocities that happen in other places.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Wow, that's nuts. How did they spin 1, 4 and 7-12? >> ^peggedbea:
omg! i've actually gone through this exact list with her and her husband before and the most bizarre thing happened - they attached every single point to "liberals". the phenomenon here is that the language has been changed. the world "liberal" is no longer derived from the word "liberty". it simple means "ugly nazi fascist death monsters"
and the word "liberty" now means "liberty in christ".
i shoplifted a copy of "the overton window" over the summer and read it aloud to my friends, the entire thing is chocked full of doublespeak. the introduction itself is almost entirely doublespeak. and sometimes i read articles on fox's website, or the drudge report or whatever for fun. it's loaded with doublespeak. almost every article uses some device to change the meaning of language. it's brilliant.
one of my best friends brother is a linguist at UF. i'm pretty sure when those boys come back to texas for christmas we're going to have a serious discussion about this.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Have you tried explaining to her what fascism is?
Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Military spending by the pentagon and homeland security doesn't reflect all the money spent on "defense". There are billions in military spending through the department of energy (anything nuclear) as well as other bureaucracy such as NSA, NASA, commerce and transportation, all charged with the illusionary goal of "security". Hidden billions upon billions.

Further, there is billions in veterans benefits, and interest on loans for past spending. We also have over 450 military bases around the world, the operations of which do not fall solely within the pentagon budget. And that is before we get to the sweet tax deals given to the military industrial complex, which basically sub-contracts out work to almost every congressional district in the country, ensuring that our economy and our employment are tied to military spending, and that congressional representatives never vote against a "defense" measure, no matter how retarded. (Notice how Obama goes to India and claims to be creating jobs because the Indian government has ordered a whole bunch of C-47's? ... our own president is chief sales rep for the military industrial complex.)

Most importantly, as a factor in DISCRETIONARY spending, we are way past 50% of the discretionary budget on military spending. The US, by quite a margin, is the most militaristic nation in the world.
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

There's a big difference between GDP and a government budget QM.>> ^quantumushroom:


Kymbos: The thing I never get about QM is that he never does any research but continually uses statistics that he just makes up. This it the internet - we all have access to the numbers, for chrissakes!
Dag: He follows the Fox doctrine- say something enough times and it must be true.
Ah, and yet we're all supposed to believe the numbers from 'The War Resisters League'.
US Military spending as a Share of GDP 1946-2009
If socialism "worked"--and it works for a short while until one runs out of other peoples' money--Greece wouldn't be bankrupt, there'd still be a soviet union and the scamulus would've "created" jobs.
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."
--FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1939

I'm merely observing results, Dag & Friends. I don't expect different results from the same doomed social experiments.

Kymbos: The thing I never get about QM is that he never does any research but continually uses statistics that he just makes up. This it the internet - we all have access to the numbers, for chrissakes!

Dag: He follows the Fox doctrine- say something enough times and it must be true.

Ah, and yet we're all supposed to believe the numbers from 'The War Resisters League'.

US Military spending as a Share of GDP 1946-2009

If socialism "worked"--and it works for a short while until one runs out of other peoples' money--Greece wouldn't be bankrupt, there'd still be a soviet union and the scamulus would've "created" jobs.

"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

--FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in 1939


I'm merely observing results, Dag & Friends. I don't expect different results from the same doomed social experiments.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
If Tea Partiers want less spending, I can guarantee they will be disappointed. Every Government is the highest spending until the next one. The biggest lie the Republicans have got over the ignorant is that they're the party of small government.
This in entirely possible. The Tea Party will doubtless be watching the GOP very very carefully. These guys aren't your run-of-the-mill bunch you can swing with pretty words. They are very committed to reigning in the spending. If substantial progress is not made based on their terms, then they will not stick with the GOP. It is also pretty certain that they would NOT then just hop to the Democrats. If politicians who run with the GOP do not perform, the Tea Party support may very well go to some other 3rd party in 2012. Who can say what will happen? But the facts are currently this... The GOP will 100% owe their victory tomorrow (however extensive) to the Tea Party vote. If they don't put Obama in a hammerlock and start rolling back his policies then 2012 will make 2010 look like a game of pattycake.



I will be amused to see the Tea Party TRULY want to cut spending--starting with their benefits first! Cut the military spending (Which needs cut badly) and make it stronger at the same time? Unlikely. Their retirement? Their community benefits? Tax meglo-corporation churches that are hardly non-profit? Cut spending on their grandchildren's schools?

I will be vastly amused if that happens. Of course that is required to start a moment that will save this entire country from debt--but let's be real WP, it is not going to happen because the Tea Party is full of crap.

I am sad by this.