Economists: Congress needs to quickly move to slash SS, Medicare, & Medicaid

[eyer]

Fitch Keeps U.S. Credit Rating at ‘AAA’, Cuts Outlook to Negative

Despite the U.S. national debt level surpassing the $15 trillion mark this month, the Supercommittee announced last week it failed to reach a bipartisan deal, triggering automatic cuts of $1 trillion split between defense and non-defense discretionary spending.

However, Fitch warned that further deficit reduction efforts “will not be credible” if they solely rely on cutting discretionary spending. Economists have said Congress needs to quickly move to slash entitlement spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Deniers are invited to visit:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/...redit-rating-at-aaa-cuts-outlook-to-negative/
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[RobDownSouth]

Economists have said....

Well, that's nice. I wonder exactly which economists said this?

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that all of these economists draw a paycheck from Fox News and/or the Heritage Foundation?

 

[koalabear]

The same ones that said there was no housing bubble.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The national debt is expected to swell to 45 Trillion by 2020. Its all over unless the Democrats abandon their ivory towers and ghettos, and get jobs.

 

[patrick1]

I have to agree about 'Economists have said....' Are they in the pay of specific interests? Or do they have some kind of academic credibility? This really matters, for the sake of whether one can reasonably believe what they say.

As for the rest, well, people have their partisan interests. I never understand why people feel they have to try and present economic information as an objective truth. In economic matters, all is up for grabs, depending on your point of view.

Patrick

 

[Liar]

The same ones that said there was no housing bubble.

Yeah well.

The problem with the housing bubble was not the housing bubble itself. That's minor. Bubbles happen. The problem was that some asshats decided to build a derivatives market ten times the size of the inflated house values on top of it.

 

[patrick1]

For some reason people have begun to panic about the size of the national debt in various countries. Just to quote big figures makes no sense. Modern governments have a sizeable national debt. It's not intrinsically a bad thing. It's how the world works. Get a grip folks

Patrick

 

[Frizzle_Fry]

For some reason people have begun to panic about the size of the national debt in various countries. Just to quote big figures makes no sense. Modern governments have a sizeable national debt. It's not intrinsically a bad thing. It's how the world works. Get a grip folks

Patrick

are you fucking serious? Some debt is one thing but the numbers the US is running are absolutely out of control and insane.
14,000,000,000,000.00 is a huge number....it's so fucking astronomical it doesn't even actually exist, which is a huge problem itself as economies based on imaginary IOU's tend to be volatile and when they shit the bed they tend to do it up with diarrhea up the wall and in everyone's face.

So yea, people who understand that we are spending inconceivable amounts of what really is imaginary money backed up only by IOU's are VERY concerned about the economic climate. Toss in some of strong inflation and the party looks like it's about over.



Here is a cool vid to give you an idea what one trillion would look like in 100 dollar bills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFb6qe7Tmg

 

[patrick1]

are you fucking serious? Some debt is one thing but the numbers the US is running are absolutely out of control and insane.
14,000,000,000,000.00 is a huge number....it's so fucking astronomical it doesn't even actually exist, which is a huge problem itself as economies based on imaginary IOU's tend to be volatile and when they shit the bed they tend to do it up with diarrhea up the wall and in everyone's face.

So yea, people who understand that we are spending inconceivable amounts of what really is imaginary money backed up only by IOU's are VERY concerned about the economic climate. Toss in some of strong inflation and the party looks like it's about over.



Here is a cool vid to give you an idea what one trillion would look like in 100 dollar bills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFb6qe7Tmg

Well, to me that's just an example of what I'm saying. You're expressing some kind of panic about big numbers. You have evidence from independent academic economists that the current size of the US national debt represents some sort of danger to you? In relation to gross national product and your annual taxatiion income, it looks ok to me. I think you could borrow some more to help stimulate your economy, but that's 'cause I'm a neo-Keynesian.

Patrick

 

[Frizzle_Fry]

Well, to me that's just an example of what I'm saying. You're expressing some kind of panic about big numbers.

I am not panicked, but I am most definitely concerned. Major conflicts, complete economical and infrastructure melt downs and a host of other problems have come about over a lot less than 14 trillion dollars worth of debt. It is a delicate situation and any number of small screw ups could end up being catastrophic.

You have evidence from independent academic economists that the current size of the US national debt represents some sort of danger to you?

Obviously I don't think the debt monster is not going to go full breech on my house in the middle of the night and gun me down. However if I wake up after some BS goes down and I can't buy a loaf of bread with a stack of 100 dollar bills it will certainly make life unpleasant and I will most likely be super pissed.

I only took macro and micro economics recently in school so I am by no means an expert. However it is because I took the class's that I learned not to invest much into what economist say/publish at an academic level. Here is why I say that, all current economic theories are based on the thought that everyone spends/invest money in a rational manner. Well we all know that's complete bull shit, if it were true there would be no such thing as gambling or any number of illogical products/services out there for sale.

So with that being said I really could not care less what an academic talking head has to say, I wan't to know what the professional traders think...they take into account the human reactions/emotions to real world events as well as technical/mathematical aspects of the economy. You would be hard pressed to find another person as in tune with the real economic climate than a professional trader.

In relation to gross national product and your annual taxatiion income, it looks ok to me. I think you could borrow some more to help stimulate your economy, but that's 'cause I'm a neo-Keynesian.

Patrick

We have borrowed an astronomical amount of money, more money than ever before. If that is not enough to fix our problem maybe we should change tactics. Like trimming some real fat out of our budget, getting rid of or revamping failed money pit programs and policies would be a good start. I would be happy if they just stoped with the 200 dollar hammers and 10,000 park benches used to inflate budgets all over the country. just a thought.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Well, to me that's just an example of what I'm saying. You're expressing some kind of panic about big numbers. You have evidence from independent academic economists that the current size of the US national debt represents some sort of danger to you? In relation to gross national product and your annual taxatiion income, it looks ok to me. I think you could borrow some more to help stimulate your economy, but that's 'cause I'm a neo-Keynesian.

Patrick

We produce writings of alarmed economists all the time. The problem is, if they say there is a danger in a debt so big that you cannot even service the debt, then they are partisan and discredited hacks.

The only "independent" sources say pretty much the same thing as the "non-partisan" sources who say debt is never a big deal, and of course, it's not. With the stroke of a key that debt simply "vanishes," bond-holders are told to go pound sand, and money is created out of thin air. As long as you keep writing entitlement checks and food stamps who cares about inflation? The working man sure has more money in his pocket...

We can always take on more debt.

This is a plan that has never failed before, not once, ever in the history of economics...

 

[patrick1]

Well, obviously we're not going to agree. I'd rather see people in work, feeling more safe in their homes and lives. I think these words like 'astronomical' and 'catastrophe' are panicked words about something that is not really a big problem. It becomes a big problem if lots of 'traders' think it's a big problem, it's one of those confidence things.

I cannot see why you would place more faith in traders than in academic economists - the traders seem to me gamblers with other people's money, out to make a short-term gain with no regard for our long-term interest - but if that's your bag, that's your bag.

Patrick

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We can't even get them to agree on a tiny cut in the rate of growth without the political calls and the press who follows them having a cow.

The only cuts we will ever get will be in collapse and if you can keep that collapse off through the next election cycle, then you have the time to find someone to blame...

Sideshow Barry Barker 2012 Says: "It's NOT the economy, Stupid!" It's the Birthers! The Tea Party! SARAH PALIN!
Bush!
BAD LUCK!!
RACISM!!!
ATMs, KIOSKs & CORPORATE JETS!!!
TSUNAMIS, TORNADOS, & the ARAB SPRING!!!
EARTHQUAKES & HURRICANES!!!!!
EUROPE’s €PIIGS!!!!!!!!
OBSTRUCTION!!!
Americans have grown “Soft!”
MY LIMP STAFF
Greece is the word!
Roman Noodles!
You're all LAZY!
China Syndrome!
Come on WORK WITH ME HERE!
I killed a lot of people people!
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/files/2011/04/obama-wide-grin80.jpg
”’Shovel-ready’ was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” (Laughter)

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Well, obviously we're not going to agree. I'd rather see people in work, feeling more safe in their homes and lives. I think these words like 'astronomical' and 'catastrophe' are panicked words about something that is not really a big problem. It becomes a big problem if lots of 'traders' think it's a big problem, it's one of those confidence things.

I cannot see why you would place more faith in traders than in academic economists - the traders seem to me gamblers with other people's money, out to make a short-term gain with no regard for our long-term interest - but if that's your bag, that's your bag.

Patrick

But we are daily deluded with the panic of the disappearing middle class, so I don't see feeling safe and comfortable in their homes.

The traders get paid on good bets. It's government that plays with house money and destroys our actual Capital.

Again, if you go to Mises and other places with opposition economics, you will find these words, but you stick to one economic viewpoint, therefore, it is never going to admit panic or allude to impending trouble; it has all the latest math, graphs and models to choose from, never you mind actual Human Action.

 

[RobDownSouth]

We produce writings of alarmed economists all the time.

You certainly do. A rather strange compulsion of yours, methinks.

The problem is, if they say there is a danger in a debt so big that you cannot even service the debt, then they are partisan and discredited hacks.

Not "partisan" or "discredited hacks", merely myopic.

Individual income tax rates are at near-historic lows for the past 50 or so years. If America insists on a certain level of government services, then America should raise taxes to pay for those services.

This is a rather basic tenet of economics 101 that the "economists" that you tend to regularly quote seem singularly unable to comprehend.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And with each increase in government benefit, income goes lower, the disparity gets greater and we hear a wailing and gnashing of teeth over the disappearing middle class and the clarion call to more government largess to aid them...

The largess, of course, can never be the problem; just Capitalism. The answer? always more taxation.

"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. ... there is only one remedy: time. People have to learn, through hard experience, the enormous disadvantage there is in plundering one another."

"We know that the number of government jobs has been increasing steadily, and that the number of applicants is increasing still more rapidly than the number of jobs. … Is this scourge about to come to an end? How can we believe it, when we see that public opinion itself wants to have everything done by that fictitious being, the state, which signifies a collection of salaried bureaucrats? … Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc. Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?

What class does not solicit the favors of the state? It would seem as if the principle of life resided in it. Aside from the innumerable horde of its own agents, agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, the arts, the theatre, the colonies, and the shipping industry expect everything from it. They want it to clear and irrigate land, to colonize, to teach, and even to amuse. Each begs a bounty, a subsidy, an incentive, and especially the gratuitous gift of certain services, such as education and credit. And why not ask the state for the gratuitous gift of all services? Why not require the state to provide all the citizens with food, drink, clothing, and shelter free of charge?

... under the name of the state the citizens taken collectively are considered as a real being, having its own life, its own wealth, independently of the lives and the wealth of the citizens themselves; and then each addresses this fictitious being, some to obtain from it education, others employment, others credit, others food, etc., etc. Now the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them.
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[RobDownSouth]

And with each increase in government benefit, income goes lower, the disparity gets greater and we hear a wailing and gnashing of teeth over the disappearing middle class and the clarion call to more government largess to aid them...

The largess, of course, can never be the problem; just Capitalism. The answer? always more taxation.

Your conjecture presupposes an across-the-board rate increase.

I seriously doubt that will occur, but hey, that's your opinion.

 

[Frizzle_Fry]

I'd rather see people in work, feeling more safe in their homes and lives.

I couldn't agree more.

I think these words like 'astronomical' and 'catastrophe' are panicked words about something that is not really a big problem. It becomes a big problem if lots of 'traders' think it's a big problem, it's one of those confidence things.

EXACTLY!!! human emotion will play a major role in directing the economy, not rational mathematical theories that economist base their entire concepts on. Those concepts play a part but human/public emotion plays a huge role that the academics like to ignore because it dose not jive with their text books. Every impulse buy or gamble made contradicts the foundation of all academic economic theories.

I cannot see why you would place more faith in traders than in academic economists - the traders seem to me gamblers with other people's money, out to make a short-term gain with no regard for our long-term interest - but if that's your bag, that's your bag.

I also have to add that 14 trillion really is an astronomical number....I don't say it out of panic. Seriously it is a thousand billion, or a million million, however you want to put it 12 decimal points is no joke.

Patrick

Because that professor dose not know enough to use his knowledge of the economy to make money, if he did he wouldn't be publishing papers about economic's, he would be working for Goldman Sachs.

What is the difference in short term gains and long term interest? Profit is profit and you can still lose your ass on long term investments. Sure I have long term stuff that is fairly safe and it will make me money, but if I can sit down for a few hrs a day and pay my electric bill this week with short term trades/scalps while I sit around watching the plants grow then why the fuck not?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Your conjecture presupposes an across-the-board rate increase.

I seriously doubt that will occur, but hey, that's your opinion.

What conjecture is that?

Go ahead and "soak the rich" all the fuck you want.

Be my guest. The middle class will absorb their cost of doing business.

Unless of course you can now answer my years old challenge; show us the means or the mechanism by which you can simply tax the rich more and force them to absorb it and not recoup their losses when they turn around and provide the goods and services the "middle class" is going to demand with the benefit of the looted largess...

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We can't even get them to agree on a tiny cut in the rate of growth without the political calls and the press who follows them having a cow.

The only cuts we will ever get will be in collapse and if you can keep that collapse off through the next election cycle, then you have the time to find someone to blame...

Sideshow Barry Barker 2012 Says: "It's NOT the economy, Stupid!" It's the Birthers! The Tea Party! SARAH PALIN!
Bush!
BAD LUCK!!
RACISM!!!
ATMs, KIOSKs & CORPORATE JETS!!!
TSUNAMIS, TORNADOS, & the ARAB SPRING!!!
EARTHQUAKES & HURRICANES!!!!!
EUROPE’s €PIIGS!!!!!!!!
OBSTRUCTION!!!
Americans have grown “Soft!”
MY LIMP STAFF
Greece is the word!
Roman Noodles!
You're all LAZY!
China Syndrome!
Come on WORK WITH ME HERE!
I killed a lot of people people!
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/files/2011/04/obama-wide-grin80.jpg
”’Shovel-ready’ was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” (Laughter)

Its likely more dire than you imagine. Barry may be the first President to rule from exile.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

What conjecture is that?

Go ahead and "soak the rich" all the fuck you want.

Be my guest. The middle class will absorb their cost of doing business.

Unless of course you can now answer my years old challenge; show us the means or the mechanism by which you can simply tax the rich more and force them to absorb it and not recoup their losses when they turn around and provide the goods and services the "middle class" is going to demand with the benefit of the looted largess...

It is called the "Price Elasticity of demand"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand

 

[Frizzle_Fry]

What conjecture is that?

Go ahead and "soak the rich" all the fuck you want.

Be my guest. The middle class will absorb their cost of doing business.

Unless of course you can now answer my years old challenge; show us the means or the mechanism by which you can simply tax the rich more and force them to absorb it and not recoup their losses when they turn around and provide the goods and services the "middle class" is going to demand with the benefit of the looted largess...

LOL "hell yea tax the shit out of coca cola!!, man why the fuck dose my 20 oz soda cost 3 bucks?"

 

[patrick1]

[snip]

Because that professor dose not know enough to use his knowledge of the economy to make money, if he did he wouldn't be publishing papers about economic's, he would be working for Goldman Sachs.

What is the difference in short term gains and long term interest? Profit is profit and you can still lose your ass on long term investments. Sure I have long term stuff that is fairly safe and it will make me money, but if I can sit down for a few hrs a day and pay my electric bill this week with short term trades/scalps while I sit around watching the plants grow then why the fuck not?

'Because that professor does not know enough...' Well, I know quite a lot of people who are not that motivated by money. Many people I know are not very motivated by money, if they have enough to get by. I've lived quite a long time now, and there really are people who would rather earn modest amounts of money at university, contributing to human knowledge that may last for a long time, than large amounts of money at Goldman Sachs, contributing to human greed. Amazing, but there you go.

To me there's a very clear difference between short term and long term benefits. Sometimes they're in direct competition. The winner in a futures gamble in coffee may impoverish 1000 people in Nicaragua for good. That would be ok, would it?

Patrick

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It is called the "Price Elasticity of demand"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand

Good lord...

Nice try, but next time understand the question and the answer you offer; neither has a thing to do with the other.

If the widget gets too expensive to manufacture due to taxation it gets made elsewhere or not at all. You seem to be saying, if we tax them so much, they can no longer effectively make widgets, then the cost won't get passed on forcing the consumer to an inferior replacement replacement commodity. Therefore, as I posited earlier, soaking the rich hurts the consumer who pays the price of the tax. You saying, well he can also be deprived of goods and services does not ameliorate this outcome, in short, you have actually helped make the point you thought you had just explained away.

But we'll give you a point for trying in the spirit of fairness and equal outcome for all students...