Slashdot Mirror
Shutdown Cost the US Economy $24 Billion
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Time Magazine reports that according to an estimate from Standard & Poor's, the government shutdown, which ended with a deal late Wednesday night after 16 days, took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services, $152 million per day in lost travel spending, $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down, and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. With the deal only guaranteeing government funding through January 15, the situation could grow worse. 'This is a real corrosion on the economy,' says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics. 'If we have to go down a similar road in the near future, the costs are going to continue to add up.'"
How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?
Because doubling spending will fix the ecomony.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Let me guess, all politicians all blame the "other side" and will let us know how much the "other side" cost us within the week.
How did all that money just leave the economy? Did someone give it away to another country?
How much will the Slashdot outage cost the economy?
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown
This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.
Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.
It cost 24 billion dollars? Based on.. any number of imaginary things they want to show it cost them right? We must keep spending money we don't have, and we must keep increasing the amount of debt we have or we are all going to die right?
I mean to say, we have to spend this for the Children, and the children just lost 24Billion dollars! If you deny their right to spend, you are a "conspiracy theorist" to boot, so shaddup!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I missed that. Good to see it up again.
Wow. Just wow.
It's not a vacation when you don't plan for it, dont know when you're going to get paid and still have to meet all your financial responsibilities in the mean time. Sign me up... :/
The government doesn't produce anything and some portion is an artificial market created by government activities. Real wealth comes from serving real markets and people's needs. The other huge problem is the amount of debt accumulation is way faster than at any time in history. If this isn't slowed the economy will come to a crashing halt.
...and they haven't been paying anything for the past two weeks. And as I said above, the government has lost those two weeks of productivity.
The real problem is not that there should not have been a shutdown. The problem is that the shutdown should not have cost so much. The government is too deeply entrenched in the economy.
Granted, shutdowns of regulatory bodies is expected to cost money, since that is expected to block business activity. Anything else just seems like a washington money spigot got closed that should not have been there in the first place.
...that it cost 24 billion to put up a bunch of paper signs, orange cones, and flimsy barricades.
dont know when you're going to get paid
Are you saying, federal workers cant look at the past history of shutdowns, see that for every single one of them, everyone got paid, and figure out that they will get paid ?
Are you saying, federal workers cant look at the history of shutdowns, and determine how long they lasted on average, and figure out when they will get paid ?
meet all your financial responsibilities
Federal workers are doing just fine. They are getting paid, same as they always have, or are you saying, they all ran out and financed new cars and had heart attacks because they thought the government they helped run was finally going under ?
If you want to cry rivers, cry them for all the private sector businesses, that have been practically bankrupted. Not only did their revenues drop to 0 because Obama shut down parks that didn't need to be shut down, they still have to pay for Obamacare, and for all those federal workers extra vacation.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown
This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.
Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.
Or, ya know, "hundreds of thousands of federal workers had to choose between predatory payday loans or defaulting on their mortgages while waiting to get paid and sitting at home every day waiting to find out if they can go back to work". Not quite the same thing as a vacation when you a.) didn't get your last paycheck, and b.) don't know when you have to go back to work.
Yes it is, same goes for being put on 'paid leave' if you are a cop, teacher or other official who is under investigation.
So... because those people are unwilling to put aside a small buffer to allow themselves some wiggle room in case of a minor disruption in their pay... we should be horrified for them? God help them if they get a check every two weeks and their car breaks down... preventing them from going to the bank to deposit it! How will they pay their bills? For that matter... how will they fix their car?!?!
Except for debts to the mob... failure to pay on time once rarely results in catastrophic results. More often than not something can be worked out. Heck, I've credit cards who won't bump my interest or report me as tardy to the reporting agencies unless I've missed 3 subsequent payments (a benefit I've never taken advantage of).
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
It takes far longer than 2 weeks to "default on their mortgages."
Stop fabricating issues when they don't exist, it just makes you look foolish.
How much does ObamaCare cost the economy?
Let's also include all the folks who go to the ER for "free" health care; which is ultimately passed on to insured patients.
Let's also consider the folks who have "pre-existing" conditions who can't get health care. They don't go off and just die. They get medical care - for free (there are quite a few docs who have a very BIG hearts and help folks who are TRULY in need as well as non-profit hospitals who must give SOME free care) .
Al those costs must be made up. So what do they do? Hire creative cost accountants who will bury it in other costs and bills. Perfectly compliant with FASB and IRS rules concerning non-profits and charities.
tl:dr: regardless of what you think or hear, we all pay one way or another for sick people - lost productivity, higher fees at the doc's office or hospital's, higher insurance fees, etc....
All "Obama Care" does is put more of it in our faces - and yes, hides some by taxing employers.
Whatever. I'm not going to argue this - and if you ask a 100 doctors, you'll get 60% of the opinions on either side (it's the joke).
We have to ask ourselves, do we want to be a culture of "Alpha Humans" and be stressed out about life's necessities or do we want to be "Beta Humans" and work together so that all of us have a decent life.
I'm all for letting the folks who nothing better to live for than striving to accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating money, but let's not let their personality disorder affect us all.
The shutdown was for nothing more than 'branding' of their party.
That's not governance in any way shape or form...
Any GOP congressman who voted for the shutdown should be arrested.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Okay, let's look at this with some Reason.
$3.1 billion in lost government services - what did this include? the numerous websites that were taken down deliberately without need? the fact that crab fisherman couldn't receive their quotas? these are failings of being wholly too reliant on government, worse and poorly run government. There is no reason fisherman should of had to stop working. Seriously, there should of been a plan that simply outlined the contingency of the catch.
$152 million per day in lost travel spending - remember, most of the shut down travel areas were shut down merely for spite, not as a result of the government shutdown. These actions were never taken during the prior 17 shut-downs.
$217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages - which are all now being paid, in fact most contractors were still working because their projects are funded by pre-allocated fixed price contracts.
Now, the real question you have to ask yourself is why the hell the Federal government has to approve every single new beer recipe, label and what not. If there is anything this government shut down has shown, it is just how pervasive, invasive, and hideous our government institution is at present.
But relax all, we still got to golf, right?
***
If our economy takes that huge of GDP drop from such a meager shutdown, than we have far far more problems economically.
Actually you can blame Joe Boehner for following the "Hastert Rule" and not allowing the budget bill to come up for a vote even though there was enough support for it to pass in the first place.
Partisan politics aside, you can't rule your house in an undemocratic manner and expect people to take you seriously when you blame the other party for all the trouble.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
As for the financial aspect, it shouldn't have caused anyone hardship to have their paychecks delayed a bit. You should have at least a few months saved up to pay bills. Any bills that arrived during this time should have already been planned for. The only financial hardship would be for those who aren't financially responsible, and in that case, it's the irresponsibility that is causing the hardship.
I just want to note that while this example is rolled out all the time to chide people for not doing enough economic planning, the government at the core of this dispute doesn't operate that way at all or even come close. This is evidenced by the fact that the other part of this debate dealt with the government being allowed to borrow more money to pay it bills and pay the interest on its past bills.
It doesn't, however, to incur a late fee on a mortgage payment.
Plus, once again this ignores the contractors who are just S.O.L. for lost wages.
It takes far longer than 2 weeks to "default on their mortgages."
Yes and no.
To go from paid and in good standing to foreclosure, it absolutely takes a lot longer than a couple weeks.
But if you are already courting default due to previous circumstances, it can be the final straw.
It won't be most people but there's going to be people out there who were already into past-due, final-notice territory, who were scrambling to get back on track who probably just had the rug yanked out from under them.
When you see how these dollars were lost it just proves more and more how much waste and unnecessary costs are involved with this federal govt. I commented on the breakdown portion of the main article statement above. I still think we should run the govt using the 80/20 assumption--20% of the people do 80% of the work just as in the private sector quite often. We could probably shrink this govt down 80% or more and still everything would run, the country would prosper without govt intrusions into everything, and the economy would grow again AND basic services would continue to run in the govt. Sure, maybe some workers might have to put on multiple hats but SO WHAT! We have to do that all the time in the private sector AND we aren't guaranteed job security as these feds seem to be. Not sure what it takes to fire anyone in this govt but you can do just about anything short of murder and get away with it...it's a travesty!! [COMMENTS TO ABOVE ARTICLE STATEMENT] The breakdown includes about $3.1 billion in lost government services [QUESTIONABLE VALUE HERE], $152 million per day in lost travel spending [TRAVEL FOR WHOM? GOVT PERSONNEL--SOUNDS LIKE WE SAVED MONEY], $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down [WOULDN'T HAVE COST ANYTHING IF OBAMA HADN'T FORCED CLOSURES OF STRUCTURES AND LAND THAT HAD NO REASON BEING CLOSED], and $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown [NO THEY DIDN'T SINCE THEY WILL BE PAID BACK-PAY--AT MOST IT WAS AN INCONVENIENCE]but small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans. [THIS I AGREE WITH IN THAT CONTRACTORS AND OTHERS WON'T GET BACK PAY AND WORKERS HAD TO USE LEAVE OR GET NO PAYCHECKS BUT THEN IT GOES BACK TO WHETHER THE AGENCIES AND SERVICES WHERE THEY WORK ARE TRULY NECESSARY]
$17 trillion in debt....
Nothing else, even a shutdown or default is undermining the dollar worse than running $1+ trillion deficits.
And if we don't stop, the government shutdown will eventually become PERMANENT. How much will that cost the economy folks.
Oh, and might I add, that the Democrats are punks because all they do is kick the bucket down past the next election.
But there are tons of folks who don't get their paychecks delayed 16 days, they didn't get them at all. The people who rely on government workers to patronize on a daily basis, like restaurants and gas stations, will never get that time or money back.
I've got some friends who work for the Fed and they loved the shutdown because they a) didn't have to go to work, b) weren't using up vacation days and c) were guaranteed backpay for the days the gov't was shutdown.
Nothing like a paid vacation.
Ah, you're still under the misconception that there is any difference between a Republican or Democrat... All the politicians are the same.
Saying "Democrats X" or "Republicans Y" is the same as saying "Politicians [X | Y]" They even rant on against some bill, then vote for it because they made a deal with the "other side" so that the other guys will vote for their pet project. Happens all the damn time.
Look, voting matters less and less the larger and more corrupt your government is. If you look at it like a black-box, that input has no effect on the output. What input does? Making a bunch of noise -- Remember SOPA/PIPA? The people didn't vote on that, all they had to do was make a big enough stink and that bill went south.
Look back at the times people made things change, 9/10 times it wasn't with votes: Folks made a big deal about something. It's the face saving PR carrot that you can dangle to affect government, not votes. Threatening vote changes won't make a bit of difference because they already got the damn vote, they don't care. Next election cycle they'll just re-gerrymander themselves into office again -- Both sides like job security, so they do this together. So, you have to make them look like morons or bullies and make their phones and mailboxes jump off the wall with all the public outrage. THAT's how shit gets done, you make it so their constituents don't want to be associated with the backlash... It's simple. However, you have to KEEP doing that or else they'll just break it up and pass the bills while you're tired of protesting by paper clipping it to something else -- That should be considered corruption and routed out, BTW.
Don't like government shutdowns? Fire congress. Vote-of-no-confidence those uncooperative morons, both sides failed their first and foremost job: To agree on a damn budget. Partisan ideological unscientific opinion based grandstanding must come secondary to doing their damn job. They didn't do their job, we should fire them. The last time Australia had a government shutdown was 1975... The Queen fired Parliament. That shit didn't happen again.
You want behavior to change, you have to apply accountability for actions. Seriously, it's like I'm talking to infants about parenting here.
While I agree, we are already paying those costs at hospitals.
The issue, is those costs won't go down. They're go to profit holding companies. And so we will continue to pay $20 for a single Tylenol, and now pay $9K for health insurance I used to pay $3K a year for.
The fact none of those open air parks were closed for any other shutdown and they still managed to survive then tells you all you need to know about the current administrations take on being a government 'for the people'.
They actively shut down parks (even those that were 100% privately funded) and even rest areas, which were literally just widened parts of the road where you could pull over to admire a view, to cause as much pain as possible.
In many, if not most cases, the cost of actively policing the parks to prevent 'recreating' was many times the normal operating costs of those same parks.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Given that all of that spending except national parks is getting sucked out of commerce through taxes, this is not a bad thing, in any way.
The parties are different, yes, but they're also both full of criminals and they're both sold out. At least at the national level. It's impossible to get elected without campaign funding that is only granted with strings attached. We've created, and maintain, a system that practically necessitates serving the interests of industries and wealthy individuals first.
You can point out the differences in which party is sold out to better special interests, but arguing that one or the other isn't sold out to special interests (again, on the national level) isn't realistic. They don't get the funding without making promises, and they don't get reelected without keeping them.
The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wow. Just wow.
It's not a vacation when you don't plan for it, dont know when you're going to get paid and still have to meet all your financial responsibilities in the mean time. Sign me up... :/
You watch. They will get paid. Obama already said so.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You can't just subtract hundreds of thousands of federal employees from the economy without there being effects. The government wasn't paying its employees, so they and the whole host of services, products, food, car & house payments, etc went unpaid. The local businesses they supported suffered slowdowns and likely resulted in secondary short-term layoffs.
I think the workers will be paid retroactively, but now they're all in "catch-up" mode.
The gov't wasn't delivering services such as economic reports so merchants got to fly blind into the all-important holiday season. And who knows how many ticking time bombs in the form of disease outbreaks, toxic waste dumps, etc went uninvestigated or underinvestigated. I guess we'll find out in the coming months.
The loss of faith in government to sort out its problems rationally has also had economic effects and will continue to do so. People are less willing to make long-term investments when the gov't is shaky.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown
This should read, 100's of thousands of federal workers, got an extra 16 day paid vacation this year.
Hardly what I would call "bearing the economic brunt" of anything.
Note that alongside the hundreds of thousands of federal workers were even more contractors who were also furloughed and will *not* be paid for their time off. If you focus only on the federal workers you'll miss the bigger picture. The contractors and subcontractors are the ones who took the real economic hit.
(Full disclosure, I'm a contractor and I'm not getting paid for the past three weeks. My client, who is a federal worker, will be given back pay.)
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I'm sure the parties are different, but not in ways I actually care about.
This would be fixed if we didn't pay government workers not to come to work!
YES....
Sure, the government can raise taxes, draw more wealth, but did you EVER PLAY SIMCITY????
The result is, that wealth declines. Sure the Fed could print quadrillion dollars and give them away on the city streets. But that doesn't equate to wealth, just cash. There is a difference. If I double the amount of cash in the world, I do not change the wealth. I merely have done a stock split. And unlike a stock split, whenever we do this crap. We don't get the other half of the split. We're told we should be happy. We still have our hundred shares, why are we complaining. But our hundred shares have actually been devalued in half.
Oh, and eventually you hit a point where your debt becomes unsustainable, and you can't borrow, raise your paycheck, etc. And default...or you keep your checkbook balanced.
No, I do not want to pay a $85 for a friggin happy meal for my grandkids.
Let's consider that....
Okay, let's call it "delayed pay leave". It was 16 days. No one who is balancing their check book will be hurt by that. Pretty much every bill has a 30 day grace period before it can be reported.
Vacation, so they didn't have money to travel, and pretty much had to stay home and spend time with their family or Xbox. But darn, how many of us would love if our employer's told us they were giving us 2 weeks leave to stay at home and get stuff done. We just couldn't pick up our check until after the leave.
I bet 95% of slashdotters here would jump on that.
Pretty much every bill has to be at least 30 days before it is reported to the credit reporting agencies. So 16 days, even with no pay, pretty much does nothing to affect.
Perhaps there are a few late fees. The real issue is those who use auto payments without over-draft protection. And then get hit with bounced check fees.
But other than that....zero impact.
Or perhaps had they been smart enough to not spend their hard earned(I use that term loosely with the feds) money on iduds and new cars every few years they would have had enough cash on hand to pay ALL of their bills for at least 3 months rather than go belly up from not working for only 2 weeks.
We ALL always have a choice. The idea that someone only has the choice between getting a paycheck from the federal government and going and getting another loan to pay for the first loan that they can't pay because they were piss poor planners is not only disingenuous, but morally bankrupt. In this country we all have not only the choice, but the opportunity to better ourselves and then some.
Another good question is WHY IN THE FLYING MONKEY POO do we need 800,000 Federal workers? And before anyone goes there, yes, I've lost my job before and was at one time out of work for more than 3 months. In the end, it all comes down to responsibility. Responsibility of both idiot political stooge parties for creating this mess and responsibility of the individual collecting a paycheck to care and provide for their families.
It never occurred to you that you can have more than one emergency at a time? For instance, having to pay for expensive chemo treatment drained your savings 3 months ago, but at least you've got a nice stable federal job! Oh wait... Also, remember these workers also had to deal with a 10% pay cut this year due to sequester furloughs, so their savings were already a bit light.
this month. And the next month. And the month after that. They will continue to print until all our problems are solved.
How does that saying go? : "May you live in interesting times".
The fact that the government chose to spend more money while it was shutdown than when it was open points to someone trying to send a political message. There is no good reason why a shutting down a company should result in *more* spending than when it's open when said company spends most of its money on labour. So I call bullshit.
You do realize most of the Tea Party wants the F-35 cut and the U.S. imperialistic military machine ended. Right?
You think it didn't work. But it did....
It further divided us, further pushed us on a path to civil war. Because on one side, is those deriding the Republicans for holding the government hostage. And on the other side are those who are like WTF was this shut down everything, barriers, etc. Sometimes illegally even. All to be spiteful. (Never done before btw)
The truth is, it worked very well. This incident pushed both sides about 5 degrees further arpart.
So this money has all been lost? Completely? Someone burnt it?
If not, then surely it is all still available, and has been/will be spent on other things.
Sounds like an accountancy disappearing trick to me.
Sad to see you were in a mess for a few days there, glad you fixed it in time, sorry to see that we will be having the same lame production in early 2014. It's really tough for you (living it) but it's also tough for us in Europe (watching it). We admire, respect and follow what you get up to over there, but we can also see too many historical parallels in our own continent (Germany in 1933) in your current political conduct. You have a Conservative heartland that naturally dislikes change (and may have racially motivated objections to anything your African-American President does) coupled with an ultra-hard-right faction who apparently merely wants to topple, or at least severely disable, the government. Wake up America, it is 2013. It is not the middle ages or even 1773. If you are "exceptional", demonstrate to the rest of the world that that is true - try to show us that rational, civilized debate is the best democratic policy. The OFs in the GOP don't seem to get that times have changed. The aptly-named "Tea Party" doesn't care - all they want is power - over the People, not for them.
OK, so person A transfers some money to person B and $10 in wealth is created. Person B now has $100 and we are all better off.
OK, so now we take money from person A and *give* it to person C who produces absolutely nothing useful in return. The $100 is gone forever! Oh wait, no. Person C now has $100 which he could then use to hire person B to do that same great thing. Or something else equally wealth creating. So it's not the $100 that's the issue.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
While I agree, a delayed paycheck shouldn't cripple these people, some of them will get screwed because they were probably already living tight, paycheck to paycheck.
Lots of people with mortgages due on the 1st are already paying it on the 15th (when there might be little or no penalty to them), because they can't afford to pay it out of the "right" check, and when they get hit with a 16-day delay in pay, suddenly they're a month late.
These people didn't know when the next paycheck was going to come. They knew they'd get it, but they didn't know if it'd be `1 day, 10 days or 100 days. Some of them likely had to make decisions about how to pay mortgages, car payments, buy groceries, etc. as soon as they missed a single paycheck.
I would garnish the wages of everyone who works in congress until that is repaid.
Not sure what the fix can be but the way US does its business is no way to administer a country. Bottom line: I think US citizens deserve the government they get.
Well, different assuming that you vote based upon things like gay rights or abortions, I suppose.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
yes, we can. Who is paying for them? Everyone else. That is money saved by the rest of the population. Did those employees sit in their homes with the power off? Never go out, never eat?
Jobs come and jobs go. Industry and businesses come and go. Government should not be exempt.
Preventative care doesn't do much because in your example all it does is prevent you from dying earlier... eh... duh?
What next, learning to swim doesn't help because it only prevents you from drowning and dying earlier?
Big news flash! We are all going to die, the idea is to do it as late as possible in as good health as possible.
Preventative care doesn't work because it only keeps you alive longer.
Please tell me you are unable to vote.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So you don't even keep a 1-paycheck buffer in your account? And you are a liar. No bank forecloses on a single payment less than 30 days late. It's not even legal.
Learn to love Alaska
Companies that built themselves on 90%+ overpriced government contracts that didn't get paid for a few weeks deserve to lose a portion of that stated money in the article. Airlines obviously don't fit that bill and the parks system has nothing to do with it but big contractors that lost billions definitely had it coming. It's such a stupid, fragile business model that it deserves to crash and burn in this kind of economic system. For example, if a company makes 99% of its money selling ballistic helmets to the FBI and just lost money because they shut down for a bit, they deserve it for propping up their entire company on one customer. I'm pretty sure the FBI was still fully funded but you get what I mean.
And in previous shutdowns, the banks waived the fees. Why lie to make it look worse, it's already bad enough, and the lies to make it look worse, make those of us who talk about how bad it is look bad by association.
Learn to love Alaska
election rolls around and vote accordingly.
More importantly, I hope the people who really elect presidents and congressmen- the big corporations and wealthy private donors- learn from this and stop supporting morons.
I find it hilarious that "VA" funding is separate from defense. And wars are separate from defense. When you put all the defense spending in a single pool, it comes closer to half the budget. But the warmongers in the military-industrial-complex want to minimize the transparency of military expenses, so they are scattered through the budget.
Learn to love Alaska
Isn't itt time to face facts and start charging some people with treason?
If you choose to deliberately attack your countries economy, it HAS to be treason.
Certainly a lot worse than leaking some information about 3 letter agencies breaking laws and eroding your freedom!
Wake the hell up.
The Tea Party are far worse than anything that the most extreme McCarthyism ever dreamed that communists could do to your country.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
US, low wage/kinda average for area.
Currently 20% of take home is needed to cover my insurance which sucks. ;)
Under Obamacare the insurance is a little less sucky and comes in at 15% probably about 10% with the subsidy.
Bonus..you only tear out half your hair trying to figure out the differences between plans now
"...$76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down." Wait..how much!? The National Parks make $76 million dollars a DAY!? Umm...how much of that goes back into the parks? And what is being done with the rest? And as has been mentioned earlier...why were they even closed? $76 million a DAY!? Wow.
Shhhh. You're messing with his used fifteen million times tea bagger joke which he can't keep from giggling about.
It's so much more fun to make the Tea Party people into crackpots as a starting point of any discussion, than it is to understand what they are looking for.
"....expect people to take you seriously when you blame the other party for all the trouble."
You're correct. I don't take you seriously. Because that's what you just did.
If you need a cancer drug, you don't have much choice.
The problem is probably not that he's unable to vote.
Nihil in publicum sputa.
This is a nice short austerity experiment. One more time we see it kills the economy, like it did in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Perhaps we could stop this nonsense in Europe, now?
The shopkeeper has NO money! The customers have money, the shopkeeper does not. The shopkeeper can only spend the money the customers earn.
Stupid isn't it? Now you know how you look and why I'm pissed off with such a "guvmunt faked 9/11" shithead making all engineers look bad.
I find it amusing how dollar large amounts are thrown around to describe how bad this shut down was. This is small change compared to the disaster the health insurance industry is about to have. Honestly, some of the government services that were shutdown probably cost tax payers more to close than to keep it running - such as federal parks (not including amenities) & government run websites. This was just a power play between a bunch of cry babies who can not compromise and come up with creative solutions.
This illustrates how divided the American Legislative branch has become. On one side, we have a president, who used to be a congressman and still tries to play one, doesn't know basic economics (yes, insurance costs are going up, no matter how you do the math), and has a congressional posse who won't legislate without him telling them what to do - a complete disregard of separation of duties if you ask me. And on the other side, a bunch of old farts who can not agree with a bunch of tea baggers to organize and work for a common goal to our problems, with each one of them pulling in different directions because they are all bought be lobbyists, banks, and other corrupt organizations.
I don't care which political way any voter leans, but come next election, I urge everyone to vote ALL incumbents out of office. This crap has to stop! It should be an honor to serve our nations citizens, not a career with lavish benefits, money being thrown at you, and no accountability. Hold them accountable - END THEIR CAREERS!
Partisan politics aside, you can't rule your house in an undemocratic manner and expect people to take you seriously when you blame the other party for all the trouble.
Well, you can, apparently. They're going to be reelected, you know. Most of them.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You know, if we have to borrow money just to pay the interest we are already beyond screwed. If you can't see that, then you, sir, are an idiot.
If government buys productivity the way they buy everything else, then we only lost a couple of hours of real productivity.
[Citation needed]
Can you show some figures about exactly how much the "fed" is "printing" each month?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Nope. One of the fundamental rules is that no Congress can tie the hands of a future congress. Another way of stating this is that it is impossible to pass a law that cannot be altered or undone. If that were possible, then the Republicans during the Bush years could have passed a law stating that no more laws could be passed and then we wouldn't be arguing about Obamacare. Even the Constitution can be altered. This means that just because Congress passes a law that creates a new agency and states that existing agencies will hire more employees to enforce that law does not mean that the next Congress has to provide the funding. That is exactly one of the reasons why the budget has to be redone every year.
Your parent AC never said the Government shouldn't collect taxes. He simply stated that any taxes collected cause wealth to not be created. The idea should be to collect as few taxes as possible and for government to run at the highest efficiency possible.
Those $24 billion need to be weighted against the trillions that Obama's costly and unnecessary new debt, regulations, restrictions, crony capitalism, bailouts, and opportunity costs are costing the economy.
One benefit is that the company can use its scale and tax incentives to increase the value of the cash they put in to schemes. Breaking it down individually (and considering income tax/BIK tax) may leave a seriously diminished sum.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
So this is being setup as the new excuse for the poor economic performance resulting from the Obama Administration's economic policies.
Betcha the "fix" is another massive barrel of pork and bribes, usually called a "stimulus" Of course the only thing actually stimulated are the party favorites.
So rather than actually implement any meaningful policy, the entire focus of our government is who to blame, PATHETIC EPIC FAIL
Murphy was an optimist
The Tea Party is a libertarian movement that mostly advocates the reduction of spending and debt lest we bankrupt our nation for our children. They were the Republican element that opposed the Patriot Act. They were the element that was more likely to say, let's focus on the fiscal matters and liberty than social/moral issues. They really didn't care about race, but about your politics. And they expressed concern both about the ongoing wars, imperialism and the foolishness of the war on drugs.
Where as the moderate Republicans distract with social causes, and join with the Democrat aisle to spend this nation in oblivion while pampering their pockets.
I know, you've got a picture in your head of the racist narrowminded bigoted Tea Party. I mean, you saw that guy in the NBC news cast with an AR15 rifle slung to his back protesting at a rally outside a townhouse meeting with Obama. It was clearly racist, right? That's what NBC said repeatedly, they pointed out how this was so seemingly racist. Of course the never panned out to show the man was a black Tea Partier.
Funny, cause the Tea Partiers and fiscal conservatives in the GOP were doing that. Though they didn't have enough strength to, they got the spare engine program defunded.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20032313-503544.html
Funny, cause the Tea Partiers and fiscal conservatives in the GOP were doing that. Though they didn't have enough strength to, they got the spare engine program defunded.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20032313-503544.html [cbsnews.com]
First, the adjusted GDP is $15.68 trillion USD (2012)
Second, the national debt is $16.97 trillion USD.
Third, the U.S. total unfunded liabilities, basically debts we've obligated ourselves to via Social Security, Medicare, etc is $126 trillion USD.
So let's look at a few things, our debt > GDP, our liabilities are are about 8x our GDP. But it doesn't stop there...because a lot of fudging has been done to increase the GDP, double accounting, accounting borrowing as GDP, etc.
So GDP is being falsely boosted by counted things like obligations, and interests. For example, if Detroit borrows money from the pensions and now owes the pension fund 3% interest. That is being counted, even though it is unfunded. Funky accounting changes result in a GDP that if accounted 3-4 decades ago would probably only measure around $12 trillion.
The issue is that we often are spending exhorbitant amounts of $$$ not to save a life, but to prolong its existence in a cold sterile hospital room when we know the end outcome is death. That is not a judicious use of $$$. I am all for spending $$$ to save a life, I am not for spending $$$ to merely push death a few weeks or a few months back.
We need to be a bit more honest...
(and I'm not the only one saying this, so are many doctors and nurses)
Correct and that is exactly why the Democrats refuse to do any budgeting...
Murphy was an optimist
"Isn't there anything you can do. Anything you can try?" - Patient's loved ones
"Well, yes....but it's unlikely to help." - Doctor
"Do it...."
$150,000 later, life was extended an extra week.
I don't have an opinion on whether it's justified or not, as it is none of my business, but why is it that nearly every American geek, at least on the internet, hates this president more than any other in living memory? What specifically, did he do to piss off the geeks?