This honestly has to be one of the dumbest ‘crises’ we have ever been in. After a series of arbitrary dates determined by short term, kick-the-can down the road fixes set by Congress, we have once again reached the debt ceiling. Once again the GOP is demanding considerable spending cuts in exchange for agreeing to raise the limit, and once again Barry doesn’t think he has to entertain the idea. Timmy G’s “extraordinary measures” are fast becoming the norm.
But the reality is that we aren’t in a crisis at all.
We aren’t facing a crisis in the way that Greece is. We don’t have people rioting in the streets. We don’t have 25% unemployment. Despite Congress’s all-time low approval ratings, most of its members were reelected last fall. Treasury yields are at all time lows. The dollar is strong.
While it’s true that there is definitely a long-term problem that needs to be fixed, is it really necessary to threaten default over the matter? What happened to passing an annual budget, and arguing about it then, like we used to?
I applaud the Republicans’ efforts to attempt to address the spending problem this country has before it can become a legitimate issue like it has in Europe. But where was the fiscal restraint a decade ago when they were planning a 9-year war of choice? It’s not like this problem has really just appeared overnight.
What truly concerns me though is not the fact that there exists an unsustainable tax/spending imbalance. It’s the fact that our elected leaders are doing such poor job of putting together a long-term solution, any kind of a long-term solution. That’s the real crisis. I’m sure that if Greece left the Euro, or whatever, three years ago, everybody would be well on their way to picking themselves up and moving on by now. Just like how things were terrible during the financial crisis, they have become better since then. It’s like eating a bad burrito. All you can do is power through it and poop it out. But this whole mess has been pointlessly dragged out for far too long.
Uncertainty is what is holding our country back. It’s not the actual effect of slightly higher taxes on a few rich people. It’s not the actual entitlement cuts themselves. It’s not the new regulations themselves. It’s the fact that we can’t make future plans or investment decisions because we don’t know what to plan for. That’s why companies are just sitting tight and hoarding cash. If the solution is higher taxes, so be it. We will all figure out a way to cope with that, as we always have. But if we don’t know what is coming, we have no way of planning for it.
So in that way, the biggest threat to the U.S. is that we are going to become Europe. Not in the sense that we will have pointlessly high taxes, huge government, and overburdening regulations. But more in the sense that our leaders will become even more spineless than they already are, becoming ever more dependent on late-night bargains that delay the day of reckoning.
I think that’s why Ron Paul has such a following. He might be an old coot with gold bars buried in his backyard, but at least he stands for something. No solution will make everybody happy, but something is better than nothing. What will it take to come up with a solution to the real crisis?
I love Ron Paul. He'd shut down half the government and reduce spending like a mad man. Which is exactly what we need.
this is the dark side of democracy. Everyone is out there to cover their ass, and nobody is brave enough to do what's right. the real underlying problem is there is no growth. And no central bank is going to let you achieve growth the easy way by weakening monetary policy. There must be innovation and competitive advantage. Unfortunately the best and brightest work in finance...
People hate Congress and Reps continue to get re-elected because of an insane amount of gerrymandering.
That said, I'm with TNA. We either need to give Ron Paul or Tom Coburn dictator powers for a year to clean things up.
I hope that was just a really bad joke.. Nobody gets dictator powers.
I hope that was just a really bad joke.. Nobody gets dictator powers.
Oh, I thought we could just dissolve the government. We can't?
No, clearly in jest. Though, Coburn and Paul are two of the only guys who put forth real, credible plans to cut the debt.
My opinion on spending is simply this, we need to greatly reduce our foreign aid spending and spending we do to try and "help" other countries. we have good intentions in providing aid and money to other countries but we need to take care of NUMBER 1 first, that may sound selfish but if the U.S. falls into a Greece like depression, we won't be helping anyone with foreign aid and you can sure as hell bet the rest of the world's economy will follow ours down the drain if we dont take care of our spending
I actually like Elizabeth Warren. Yes, she's liberal, but she actually knows what she's talking about when it comes to bank regulation.
They may have ostensible overlap, perhaps an anti-elite sentiment and being somewhat pro-glass steagall, I believe. But if RP really had his way, he'd eliminate the fed and FDIC and SEC which, in his mind, would eliminate the need for glass steagall and create an environment where banks could and should be "regulated" by only the free market. I'm pretty sure he just voted against glass steagall repeal b/c it somewhat patches up the broken Fed system. I'm not necessarily advocating his position, I'm just explaining it, b/c when you hear it, you've got to realize Warren is nowhere near Paul on banking regulation...or regulation in general...or almost anything economic at all.
You sure did extrapolate a lot from TheKing saying that Ron Paul would cut the debt (the dictator comment was in jest, as previously noted) and that Elizabeth Warren understands financial regulation. I don't see any reason those two things need to be mutually exclusive.
1.) I like Paul because he's fairly anti-war and hawkish on cutting spending. I don't have to love everything he does and I think there is some level of common ground between Paul and someone like Warren (or Bernie Sanders, for that matter.)
2.) Paul actually voted against repealing Glass-Steagall because he didn't actually believe the banks could self-regulate.
3.) I'd prefer the kind of banking regulation we had pre-1999 to what we had during Bush's term and what we have now.
4.) People hate on Warren for no reason other than they think it's cool to call themselves a conservative or they are hardliners on cutting taxes. She's smart on the issues.
5.) I've stated my positions on the bailouts and regulation like 50,000 times on this site, and I just don't care to write it out in-depth anymore.
I've said it before - benevolent dictatorship is the best way to run a country.
Is there ever such a thing?
Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971. He's the only one that comes to mind.
This is a strong statement and a conclusion that I think the OP is too quick to make. If I take a sharpened penicil, for instance, and drove it into your arm it would hurt for a while, but even without moving the it, the pain would soon subside. Am I no longer poking you in the arm in a way that once hurt? No, but does it hurt? Also no.
It seems to me that things are not better, they're just as bad, or slightly worse, and we've simply become used to the pain.
I think they have become better. Of course they are not what they once were, but I think it's hard to deny that things are better, if only marginally, than they were in 08/09.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly think some aspects of the economy have gotten better (the S&P500 comes to mind), others have gotten worse, like absurd deposits coupled with non-existing loans, and everyone's favorite: QE4EVA. But this is definitely one of those topics that reasonable people can disagree on.
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