>> ^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.

>> ^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'm betting $1.04 CAD (or $1 USD) those are blanks in them guns.

source:
While the Unreal Engine 3 has been quite open for modders to tinker around with, the ability to publish and sell games made using UE3 was restricted to licensees of the engine. However, on November 2009, Epic released a free version of their engine, called the Unreal Developer Kit (UDK), that is available to the general public. According to the current EULA, game makers can sell their games by paying Epic the cost of $99 USD at the outset, and 25% of all revenue above $50000 USD.[15] In addition, in the December 2010 release of UDK, it now comes with support of creating iOS games.

When I watched this I literally was visioning that game for N64 I usd to play, 1080 snow board ??? it was just as if I was playing that game.. haha.

@TheGenk & @EMPIRE

Are those prices for basic community/junior/2-year colleges?

Because I only pay about 1300 USD for a 12 credit semester at my local 2 year.
Which is probably a little less than 1000 EUR.

How much is the cost of a 4 year University? Or post graduate studies like Masters and Doctorates?

But yeah, Uhmerika sucks.. I hate it. I need to change it.

>> ^flavioribeiro:

This is surprisingly accurate commentary for CNN. I just wish he hadn't equated this with the sensationalist claim of "declaring war on the U.S. Dollar". There's enough tension already with U.S. politicians blaming China for the American deficit. It would have been more accurate to simply say that China and Russia don't trust the long term stability of the USD (since it seems unlikely that the U.S. will be able to honor its debts -- he could have kept this last part out, even though it's the elephant in the room).


Financial news that is important to the Rich is always treated much better than other news because the rich need to have clear information. Take a look at the Wall Street Journal...probably the best print news in the US, you can find out tons about almost anything in there, all very candid and instructive. The reason is is that the people who read that paper are already deeply indoctrinated...you don't have to worry about them because what it's reporting on is in their best interests.

This is surprisingly accurate commentary for CNN. I just wish he hadn't equated this with the sensationalist claim of "declaring war on the U.S. Dollar". There's enough tension already with U.S. politicians blaming China for the American deficit. It would have been more accurate to simply say that China and Russia don't trust the long term stability of the USD (since it seems unlikely that the U.S. will be able to honor its debts -- he could have kept this last part out, even though it's the elephant in the room).

I don't have an education in IT, and neither am I extremely knowledgeable in programming and actual administrating, and yet I think I can relate, at least somewhat - I've dabbled in some types of languages and databases, and am on first-name terms with hardware and software in general, and as a result I have just wound up as an "IT Project Implementation Lead" in a nationalized bank (don't assume I'm loaded though - my monthly salary is 3 figures in USD). I like what I currently do and I like working in general, in part because every day is full of validation, since I've discovered that the majority of people, especially those in middle-management, are a terrible mix of incredibly lazy, incompetent and ineffective (i.e. I chose the second answer in the poll), so it's rather easy to stand out for your work-ethics. Anyway, thought you (and other IT folks) might enjoy this one, if you haven't heard it already:


A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces altitude and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology" says the balloonist.

"I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone."

The man below says "You must work in business."

"I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
I'm temporarily unemployed as I moved from NY to MO last month, but I went ahead and chose #2 since I'll be working again in a few weeks.

I've been in IT and Network Administration for 14 years now. I enjoy it so long as things are moving forward. The downside to IT is that you're almost always in a power struggle of sorts. The users hate the system and blame you for everything that goes wrong but they also fight you on everything you try to do to improve things. Management is also an issue as they rarely have any understanding of the decisions that IT faces, but they also tend to ignore the input you give them. The end result is that someone makes a decision with no knowledge of the situation and then you spend all your time putting out fires.

The one significant regret I have in my line of work is the lack of creativity. I like doing design, drawing, painting, photography, etc and there's almost no place for any of those skills in IT. I really always wanted to be a game designer, but could never find the road to take me there.

I wonder if they adjusted for inflation?

If you adjust those numbers for inflation, you might even see the earnings of the lower class go DOWN over the years.

The average inflation rate for the US since 1914 till now was 3.38%.

Strictly applying 3.38% to $38400 over 5 years would yield $45,344, which is a difference of -$3,644, which accounts to a 9.2% drop.

Adjusting $1.08m would yield $1.275m, which is a difference of approximately +$595,000, which accounts to a 46.7% increase.

Granted I don't have the raw data, so this is just conjecture, it is still interesting.

The USD notes don't quite look so similar now, with different colours used on most (all?) of them.

I still get confused with nickles/dimes with the dime being smaller and the same colour, but being worth more than a nickel. Oh, and a dime doesn't say how much it's really worth on it in dollars or cents. At least they put the numeric value on their notes

>> ^spoco2:

This, and America's retarded insistence on having ALL their damn paper money LOOK THE SAME makes spending any time over there a pain in the arse.

Wow, wth is going on in that CGI?

Translation:

Sarah Palin plans to run for President in 2012. In 2008, Republican presidential nominee Biden selects Palin to be his sidekick. At the time, very few people knew who she was. When the two lost the election, they parted ways, but Palin became the conservative party's hottie queen and rapidly gained popularity.

A <sarcasm> creditworthy news channel </sarcasm> invited her as a celebrity spokesperson to discuss various debated issues such as the BP Gulf oil spill.

Her family life had also come under public scrutiny. Rumors suggest that her daughter is following in her father's footsteps (?) and will be starring in a reality TV show.

Some people are concerned that she lacks experience but she is confident that she has a strong grasp of national policies.

As she grew in fame, Palin also worked to influence the local politics of New York City. She also invented new vocabulary and compared herself to Shakespeare.

This year, her political action committee, SarahPAC, has already fundraised $1.3 million USD. Such an aggressive act to raise funds has lead people to suspect whether she will be squaring off with Obama during the presidential election of 2012. If Palin is elected, it will represent the American people's willingness to defend conservative principles and "refudiate" Obama.

Looks like the software is Live for Speed, and that's a commercially available motion platform, though I forget what it's called off-hand. The software is about $40 USD, and the motion platform in the general neighborhood of $30,000 USD.

I would very much like to have one.

Fun Fact of the Day: $10,000 USD = $1,492,091.91 Nigerian "Naira"
The Average Income per household is around $330 USD = about $50,000 Naira

Isn't Learning Fun!

^A couple of years ago one of the fighters, I don't remember which, said a championship fight often has 1 million USD on the line --once you factor in sponsorships.

That sounds in line with other sports... news articles say Tiger Woods' income is 10% from golf and 90% from sponsorships.