What you describe may or may not be happening, but it is not defaulting any more than it is to take out a second mortgage.
Which, BTW, is treated the same on your credit report. Continuous refinancing is almost as bad as missed payments.
Who is rich and therefore in your crosshairs? What defines someone as rich and gives you more claim to their assets than they have?
Anyone who earns more than the Platonic Maximum Salary limit of 10x minimum wage- currently an income of $235,0000/year. It's hard to define because money, since the disconnection from the Gold Standard and the Silver Certificate, has become largely imaginary and mythical.
I took your challenge and can tell you confidently: I am not a "wage-slave." I also challenge both you and the author of the "distributism" website to produce evidence that the average 13th century peasant could afford "good musical instruments" for their children or school them at home in anything beyond agriculture/homemaking. You know the 13th century was no cake walk for Peasants. It's wasn't just like the Medieval Times restaurant you went to last weekend.
It was, however, an economy based on morality instead of profit. The point of distributism is to return not to feudalism (though that would be nice too, in comparison) but rather to a Just Wage for a Fair Price. Unlimited profit is no good for anybody.
GDP = consumption + investment + exports - imports. It neither has been, nor currently is, negative.
That's a different equation than I learned- GDP=Factory output + Farm output + Utility Output. Consumption should be negative, as should imports, and the net should be as close to zero as possible (positive would indicate an overproduction problem, negative an underproduction problem).
Moreover, all the NDP represents is GDP adjusted for capital stock depreciation. It is generally deprecated because its calculation requires more estimation. The real GDP rose between 1995 and 2000 at 4.3% per year while the NDP rose 4% a year over the same time period. The NDP is generally lower than the GDP because of the high cost and rapid depreciation of modern capital stock like software and IT infrastructure. http://www.bea.gov/bea/articles/beawide/2001/0301m ne.pdf
And yet- at this point, we're importing $661 billion worth of goods more than we produce. Adding in extra money for non-productive industries like the financial sector is non-realistic. PRODUCTION should be PRODUCTION, not conumption, not investments, certainly not paper shuffling and retail. Those jobs are all parasitical on production, and are value reduction, not value addition.
People redeem U.S. government securities every day, and they are repayed with interest. The U.S. has never defaulted payment on a government issued security. Prove the converse, if true it should be easy.
It is in fact very easy to prove that at best, the United States has accomplished this miracle by robbing Peter to pay Paul- and that the ammount of debt carried by the US has never actually gone down. Just look at the graphs in that link to see that one. If the government was truly paying off the debt instead of just borrowing more money to pay interest on what we currently owe- that would be going DOWN not UP.
It takes one with a particularly narrow sadistic mind to consider bodily injury the only kind of punishment.
Let's put it this way- it's the only punishment that actually corrects behavior. All the other punishments (fines, time outs, etc) don't actually do anything to correct the behavior because they don't cause any pain.
Inflation makes debt worth less, but it also diminishes the buying power of individuals and degrades their quality of life. Inflation is devastating, just ask the citizens of Argentina.
Guess what- the quality of life in the United States is currently unsustainable- and has been since the 1950s.
The federal debt must be placed in context. The more you earn, the more debt you can bear.
But the less debt you should NEED to bear- if you're living within your means.
Expressing the federal debt as a function of GDP places it in this context. Appreciating it as a percentage of GDP, the federal government debt held by the public (not federal government accounts) was 36.1% in 2003. In 1993 it was 49.4%, 1983 32%, 1973 22%, 1963 42.4%, 1953 56.8%. So placed within the proper economic and historical context, the federal debt burden is currently within historic norms.
The problem is that the salary of the common man hasn't risen with GDP- because GDP is currently really negative. You see, the problem with GDP is that it is GROSS not NET. NET domestic product hasn't been positive since the mid 1990s- and before that hadn't been positive since the 1950s. So actual income is just more borrowing.
The problem is Social Security. In particular, Social Security taxes are either payed out as benefits immediately OR invested in Treasury Department securities. The money the Treasury Department gets in exchange for the paper certificates goes into the general treasury. This is referred to as the "Trust Fund," but there really isn't money in the fund in the same sense as money sitting in a separate bank account. It's not even still in the treasury, it's been spent.
Along with everything else- borrowed and spent and like the original example, it will never be paid back. All spent on tax breaks for the rich.
Consequently, violent revolution, won't recover the money from the trust fund.
Correct- but that's not where violent revolution will get the money. The violent revolution will get the money from the place it was spent- the tax breaks for the rich.
In fact, it will make recovery from the trust fund nearly impossible. Ergo: your "obvious" solution is actually lunacy...remarkably consistent with the totality of the arguments you've forwarded thusfar.
No- it just means we'll have to recover the money from where it was spent. Since it was spent on tax breaks for the rich, the money will come back from the rich.
Starving population? 100% failing to have basic needs met? 13th Century pesant? You are a wingnut.
True, but if nobody borrowed money from banks then the banks would have no reason to borrow money from investors. What would you do then?
Actually not hire bankers to sit there and make money off of their lack of work? Maybe actually USE the money to buy goods I need for my family, thus giving a job to the guy down the street so that he doesn't rob me? Any way you slice it- investing is an attempt to earn money without working.
And these days, global trade makes wars between first-world countries unnecessary.
I disagree. In fact, I forsee the day when first world countries will not only fight each other, but fight to be free of the oppressive global trade organizations.
My IPAQ can theoretically do this if I can open up port forwarding in the firewall to the required ports for Activesync. The question is- why would I want to take the security risk when I can pull my e-mail through IMAP or Pop3 instead of have it pushed to me? Still, ask me again in three months when I have a bluetooth cell phone capable of net access. (of course- at that point I can just install "Blackberry Connect" if my agency's blackberry server is up by then).
The hard part is the mini-ITX board. A mere PC with comparable software stats can be had from Great Wall Computers for $199 at any Fry's- but it's not cute and it's not small (mini tower case).
I always thought that the current President was witty. He has exactly the same sense of humor as my wife. Unfortuneately, he also seems to have the exact same set of learning disabilities as well.
Incredibly bad at honoring our debt obligations? Particularly unstable? Can you provide evidence or example? Has the instability been more or less disruptive to the foundations of government than that associated with the depression, abolition, women's suffrage, or the civil war?
http://home.att.net/~mwhodges/debt.htm tells the story- and we've yet to see how disruptive it will be. Certainly at present time, anybody buying any sort of security sold by the United States Government is a fool who doesn't know the truth about just how overextended we are and how we've failed to pay back any significant debt since 1929.
Yes, but you're the one who said we should "hide the body" and "charge up" their credit cards. If I were to extend the metaphore, your plan is like leading a mob of stockholders that shoot Martha Stewart in a crowded public square because you don't think she's gonna honor her stock.
If Martha has spent the past 60 years not honoring her stock- then you might have a bit of a case.
Yes, good thinking. You can cleanly pick off the large corporations. No small businesses provide any services to large corporations, and large corporations don't contribute to the economy. There will still be plenty of demand left in the economy when people once employed by the corporations and small businesses are out of work. I suppose that once the corporations are gone, the people will be happier without their televisions, sodas, cars, gas, computers, and other products produced by large corporations. After all, they will have the company's office furniture and the cash from the register at the local Texaco under the mattress.
What does demand matter to a starving population? Basic needs have yet to be met for 100% of the population- maybe when your vaulted capitalism can do that, we can talk about how the rest is worth something.
Of course that cash gets its value because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, an institution destroyed under your plan.
That institute has no faith and credit left- hasn't for a very long time now.
Dramatic inflation would be almost inevitable as the dollars value would plummet without the government there to give it value.
What's wrong with inflation? At least inflation helps us pay down debt.
Oh, right, your Marxist benevloence would shine through after killing and seizing the assets of everyone perceived to hold power under the current system.
Why not, what would I do with excess?
Guilty as charged. I believe that the free market is still better than what humans can accomplish via managed economies.
Then you're just another wage slave who doesn't know he's got fewer freedoms than your average 13th century peasant.
I believe that the federal representative republic in which we live gives citizens a voice without yielding to mob rule.
Too bad none of the representatives are chosen by the citizens anymore- they're all bought and paid for by the corporations, who are the real government.
I believe that limited debt is an efficient way to take risk in order to produce growth, and that the presence of a federal deficit for over 100 years actually argues strongly that the government takes its debt obligations seriously.
100 years of defaulting on debt argues that the government takes it's debt obligations seriously? Actually, it hasn't been 100 years yet- we had no debt and no deficit in 1928 and 1929, the last time that the government could be counted on to pay it's debts.
Quite the contrary. I disagree strongly with your argument in favor of torture, murder, and theft for the recovery of debt. That does not equate with a belief that defaulting on debt should be "punishment" free. I believe that it should be free from punishment by bodily injury.
Which means free from punishment- besides, above you said you agreed with the rediculous argument that failing to pay debt for 100 years is evidence of taking debt seriously.....
Lower taxes is only cures the symptoms, not the cause. Sure, raising taxes will reduce and even reverse debt. However, less income for families means more dependance on government...which will require even more tax dollars to support and staff the government to provide those service.
Depends on what you raise taxes on- after all, income for families isn't the only tax available. Given our current propensity for buying more in imports than we export- I'd suggest a shipping tax on incoming goods at the border.
See a trend? It's a downword spiral of transfering the power and responsibilty from the people to the government. Worst case scenario, we turn into a nation of communism.
Not too worst case for me (see my handle, I believe the only thing wrong with communism is capitalists like Stalin and Lenin who had a great background in stealing from people but a horrible background in engineering) but I think we're headed towards an even worse case scenario than badly run Soviet-style organized crime communism- transfering power and responsibility from the people, to the government, and from there, to a shadow government run by the big multinational corporations and the WTO. We've already given up sovreignity over our markets to them- it's an easy next step to giving them other forms of control as the government goes bankrupt. In fact, given where politicians get their campaign contributions and the recent history of he who has the biggest campaign budget is able to pay off the hackers to rig the central tabulators, I think we've pretty much abandoned democracy for that oligarchy already.
Honestly, I think what needs to happen is another ecconomic depression in order to set into motion a wake-up call and change our culture on how to save and spend properly. And, we may not be too far from it...
The really scary part when you dig into the government/trade deficits is who is buying up the debt. One day the House of Saud and the Waltons will marry, and we'll be back to living under a nobility, for they will own the government.
A bit of backup for what I was saying about the United States honoring it's debt obligations: http://home.att.net/~mwhodges/debt.htm is an interesting report on how we went from oweing NOTHING to ANYBODY, to $200 million over the 20 years after WWII never getting paid off but never going up either, to the horrid situation we have today where every baby is born $25,000 in debt or more. It shows how over the last 40 years, Americans have been taking WAY more in government services than they have been paying for- and why the "surplus" was a bogus fiddling of numbers taking from FICA to support tax breaks for the rich.
I'm far from wealthy. But I'm happy to say that I'm clear out of debt. So there is something positive for having a surplus of income regardless how little it is. I've just learned I had to live withen my means.
I wish all of us could do so well! I'm trying- got a really good lesson in how horrible debt is since I got married and realized just how bad my wife's money skills really are. I'll be there in a decade or two. Too bad our government isn't as smart- do you have your $25,778.49 (as of January 19, 2005, at 03:58:33 PM GMT, see link for current number) in future taxes that you owe for government services currently rendered as well? It's amazing how many wealthy people think they got debt free and wealthy on their own- when in reality they were borrowing for all sorts of government services like roads, fire, police protection, schools, and the military. They want lower taxes- but lower taxes directly translates to more debt.
While government owned assets like used fighter jets and ships and government buildings may have some meager value, the most valuable asset of the U.S. government is its stability and its history of honoring its debt obligations.
There's also a hoard of gold in Fort Knox...but I find it interesting that you quote stability and history of honoring debt obligations- when for the past 40 years or so we've been particularily unstable and incredibly bad at honoring our debt obligations.
First of all, how do you propose to "hide the body" when you're talking about "massive violent revolution" in the United States? Word is gonna get out.
Two separate topics there- you're the one who tried to compare the government to individuals there. However- my point is that there are people currently profiting from the situation of the rich getting tax breaks by stealing from FICA- and that we can get that money back by killing those people.
Second, plundering the property of the government would only partially repay those controlling marketable government assets after the revolution.
There's more than just the property of the government at stake- there's also the property of the shadow government, the corporations, which when police protection disapears will also be up for grabs.
The government would still totally default on credit held by those not so "fortunate."
True- but the property of the rich will also be available for tribute and dispersal to the less fortuneate.
Thus, violent revolution does not prevent default; it makes default inevitable.
Rather, it makes repayment inevitable- even if that repayment hurts the real government, big business. What you fail to realize is that what you think is the government right now is just a puppet government- large corporations are who is really in control.
Third, the government has no "credit cards" to "charge up." The government sells securities, and no one's going to buy them after the violent revolution renders previously issued securities worthless.
No one should be buying them in the first place- as it's become obvious that the United States has no interest in actually raising taxes to pay that debt, because that would harm the real government- the multinational corporations that form the WTO.
Your "obvious" solution is nonsense.
Only when viewed through the eye of somebody who still thinks democracy has any meaning at all in the United States, or that a government that has been running deficits for a good hundred years now is a good credit risk.
You're now officially on the list of "people from whom I will not borrow money" along with the mob, my friends, and my family.
Good- since it's obvioius that defaulting on loans without punishment is standard operating procedure in your book.
How exactly does a _violent_ revolution collect on the loan?
By killing the people who are keeping you from collecting on the loan, you can take their property in lieu of payment.
That's like saying that the "obvious" way to collect on a debt is to shoot the person owing you money.
Thus taking their wallet....hide the body so nobody knows that they are dead and charge up the ammount of the loan on their credit cards.
It's even worse with the government though- with the individual you can say, break a leg or two and give them another week to pay up before you shoot them. Try that with the government and your attempt to force them to pay back the loan will fail- you'll end up in jail.
Well, it will serve them right- that show is the last and only reason to watch their crappy network, and it's not a very good reason at that. At least it will enable me to tape Joan of Arcadia and watch Stargate instead (currently taping Enterprise, Watching Joan, and catching the reruns on Sci-Fi channel at midnight....)
When asked to justify your comment, however, you resorted to a lame 2 liner about people being astonished by the unexpected behavior of the $water_body, and going out to satisfy their natural curiousity...which is a natural reaction given normal human nature.
Superstition and religion is a natural reaction given human nature. Going against that reaction takes training. There was an equivalent Tsunami in 1833. One would think this would be taught to the kids- if the water leaves it will return.
Let's just say that I've been very disappointed recently (in the last 4 years or so) of the incredible short sightedness and stupidity from two big groups of human beings- one on the Indian subcontinent, and their mirror image in New York City on Wall Street.
Oh. And profit should be corresponding to risk, too. Sure, if there is no risk, no profit.
Under capitalism, the only risk belongs to the laborer and the customer- the money is made off of the difference between what you pay the one and can charge the other.
And value of goods would depend on how much competitions cost and how much people willing to play.
Not under the Just Price Doctrine- which states that instead of competition, you cooperate with your competitors to make sure that no customer EVER pays more than 10% above cost to create the goods.
And close down my business would leave my employees with no work for the short term.
In this economy, it's the long term. But under the idea of a Just Wage Doctrine- if by some mistake happens where 10% is not enough of a return, the other members of your guild have a responsibility to hire your workers in exchange for the increased business that your departure from the scene causes. Guild ecconomics may not be flashy, it might not make anybody rich terribly quickly (though the administrators of the guilds have a tendency to control large resources to help members through lean times) but it does make sure the maximum number of people are able to participate in the economy.
Just preach what you consider right. But do it meekly -- not everyone is knowlegable. And please don't exaggerate.
I tried that- the problem is that not everyone IS knowlegable and thus you need to shock them out of the lie they've been living FIRST. Amazing how many Christians worship Mammon instead of following in the footsteps of the Apostles.
Having said that- you'll never see Les Schwab in the Fortune 500, or Alan Hansen (you can google them both). Why? Because they understand their duty to the poor. Their duty to treat people like PEOPLE, rather than like marks to steal from. They are lacking in capitalism- but they've found God.
Nope- you missed the point. The NAT Proxy isn't to get multiple users to connect. The purpose of the NAT proxy is to protect the user's identity. So no, the first user doesn't have to connect to a second USER, instead he connects to the local NAT router.
Slashdot Mirror
What you describe may or may not be happening, but it is not defaulting any more than it is to take out a second mortgage.
m ne.pdf
Which, BTW, is treated the same on your credit report. Continuous refinancing is almost as bad as missed payments.
Who is rich and therefore in your crosshairs? What defines someone as rich and gives you more claim to their assets than they have?
Anyone who earns more than the Platonic Maximum Salary limit of 10x minimum wage- currently an income of $235,0000/year. It's hard to define because money, since the disconnection from the Gold Standard and the Silver Certificate, has become largely imaginary and mythical.
I took your challenge and can tell you confidently: I am not a "wage-slave." I also challenge both you and the author of the "distributism" website to produce evidence that the average 13th century peasant could afford "good musical instruments" for their children or school them at home in anything beyond agriculture/homemaking. You know the 13th century was no cake walk for Peasants. It's wasn't just like the Medieval Times restaurant you went to last weekend.
It was, however, an economy based on morality instead of profit. The point of distributism is to return not to feudalism (though that would be nice too, in comparison) but rather to a Just Wage for a Fair Price. Unlimited profit is no good for anybody.
GDP = consumption + investment + exports - imports. It neither has been, nor currently is, negative.
That's a different equation than I learned- GDP=Factory output + Farm output + Utility Output. Consumption should be negative, as should imports, and the net should be as close to zero as possible (positive would indicate an overproduction problem, negative an underproduction problem).
Moreover, all the NDP represents is GDP adjusted for capital stock depreciation. It is generally deprecated because its calculation requires more estimation. The real GDP rose between 1995 and 2000 at 4.3% per year while the NDP rose 4% a year over the same time period. The NDP is generally lower than the GDP because of the high cost and rapid depreciation of modern capital stock like software and IT infrastructure. http://www.bea.gov/bea/articles/beawide/2001/0301
And yet- at this point, we're importing $661 billion worth of goods more than we produce. Adding in extra money for non-productive industries like the financial sector is non-realistic. PRODUCTION should be PRODUCTION, not conumption, not investments, certainly not paper shuffling and retail. Those jobs are all parasitical on production, and are value reduction, not value addition.
People redeem U.S. government securities every day, and they are repayed with interest. The U.S. has never defaulted payment on a government issued security. Prove the converse, if true it should be easy.
It is in fact very easy to prove that at best, the United States has accomplished this miracle by robbing Peter to pay Paul- and that the ammount of debt carried by the US has never actually gone down. Just look at the graphs in that link to see that one. If the government was truly paying off the debt instead of just borrowing more money to pay interest on what we currently owe- that would be going DOWN not UP.
It takes one with a particularly narrow sadistic mind to consider bodily injury the only kind of punishment.
Let's put it this way- it's the only punishment that actually corrects behavior. All the other punishments (fines, time outs, etc) don't actually do anything to correct the behavior because they don't cause any pain.
Inflation makes debt worth less, but it also diminishes the buying power of individuals and degrades their quality of life. Inflation is devastating, just ask the citizens of Argentina.
Guess what- the quality of life in the United States is currently unsustainable- and has been since the 1950s.
The federal debt must be placed in context. The more you earn, the more debt you can bear.
But the less debt you should NEED to bear- if you're living within your means.
Expressing the federal debt as a function of GDP places it in this context. Appreciating it as a percentage of GDP, the federal government debt held by the public (not federal government accounts) was 36.1% in 2003. In 1993 it was 49.4%, 1983 32%, 1973 22%, 1963 42.4%, 1953 56.8%. So placed within the proper economic and historical context, the federal debt burden is currently within historic norms.
The problem is that the salary of the common man hasn't risen with GDP- because GDP is currently really negative. You see, the problem with GDP is that it is GROSS not NET. NET domestic product hasn't been positive since the mid 1990s- and before that hadn't been positive since the 1950s. So actual income is just more borrowing.
The problem is Social Security. In particular, Social Security taxes are either payed out as benefits immediately OR invested in Treasury Department securities. The money the Treasury Department gets in exchange for the paper certificates goes into the general treasury. This is referred to as the "Trust Fund," but there really isn't money in the fund in the same sense as money sitting in a separate bank account. It's not even still in the treasury, it's been spent.
Along with everything else- borrowed and spent and like the original example, it will never be paid back. All spent on tax breaks for the rich.
Consequently, violent revolution, won't recover the money from the trust fund.
Correct- but that's not where violent revolution will get the money. The violent revolution will get the money from the place it was spent- the tax breaks for the rich.
In fact, it will make recovery from the trust fund nearly impossible. Ergo: your "obvious" solution is actually lunacy...remarkably consistent with the totality of the arguments you've forwarded thusfar.
No- it just means we'll have to recover the money from where it was spent. Since it was spent on tax breaks for the rich, the money will come back from the rich.
Starving population? 100% failing to have basic needs met? 13th Century pesant? You are a wingnut.
Care to take the challenge? http://www.distributism.org/wageslave.htm tells you the truth about the freedoms we've lost since the "Enlightenment".
True, but if nobody borrowed money from banks then the banks would have no reason to borrow money from investors. What would you do then?
Actually not hire bankers to sit there and make money off of their lack of work? Maybe actually USE the money to buy goods I need for my family, thus giving a job to the guy down the street so that he doesn't rob me? Any way you slice it- investing is an attempt to earn money without working.
And these days, global trade makes wars between first-world countries unnecessary.
I disagree. In fact, I forsee the day when first world countries will not only fight each other, but fight to be free of the oppressive global trade organizations.
My IPAQ can theoretically do this if I can open up port forwarding in the firewall to the required ports for Activesync. The question is- why would I want to take the security risk when I can pull my e-mail through IMAP or Pop3 instead of have it pushed to me? Still, ask me again in three months when I have a bluetooth cell phone capable of net access. (of course- at that point I can just install "Blackberry Connect" if my agency's blackberry server is up by then).
You really do know jack shiat about MacOS. I ain't no expert- but even I know that OSX and above is based on Unix.
The hard part is the mini-ITX board. A mere PC with comparable software stats can be had from Great Wall Computers for $199 at any Fry's- but it's not cute and it's not small (mini tower case).
I always thought that the current President was witty. He has exactly the same sense of humor as my wife. Unfortuneately, he also seems to have the exact same set of learning disabilities as well.
Incredibly bad at honoring our debt obligations? Particularly unstable? Can you provide evidence or example? Has the instability been more or less disruptive to the foundations of government than that associated with the depression, abolition, women's suffrage, or the civil war?
http://home.att.net/~mwhodges/debt.htm tells the story- and we've yet to see how disruptive it will be. Certainly at present time, anybody buying any sort of security sold by the United States Government is a fool who doesn't know the truth about just how overextended we are and how we've failed to pay back any significant debt since 1929.
Yes, but you're the one who said we should "hide the body" and "charge up" their credit cards. If I were to extend the metaphore, your plan is like leading a mob of stockholders that shoot Martha Stewart in a crowded public square because you don't think she's gonna honor her stock.
If Martha has spent the past 60 years not honoring her stock- then you might have a bit of a case.
Yes, good thinking. You can cleanly pick off the large corporations. No small businesses provide any services to large corporations, and large corporations don't contribute to the economy. There will still be plenty of demand left in the economy when people once employed by the corporations and small businesses are out of work. I suppose that once the corporations are gone, the people will be happier without their televisions, sodas, cars, gas, computers, and other products produced by large corporations. After all, they will have the company's office furniture and the cash from the register at the local Texaco under the mattress.
What does demand matter to a starving population? Basic needs have yet to be met for 100% of the population- maybe when your vaulted capitalism can do that, we can talk about how the rest is worth something.
Of course that cash gets its value because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, an institution destroyed under your plan.
That institute has no faith and credit left- hasn't for a very long time now.
Dramatic inflation would be almost inevitable as the dollars value would plummet without the government there to give it value.
What's wrong with inflation? At least inflation helps us pay down debt.
Oh, right, your Marxist benevloence would shine through after killing and seizing the assets of everyone perceived to hold power under the current system.
Why not, what would I do with excess?
Guilty as charged. I believe that the free market is still better than what humans can accomplish via managed economies.
Then you're just another wage slave who doesn't know he's got fewer freedoms than your average 13th century peasant.
I believe that the federal representative republic in which we live gives citizens a voice without yielding to mob rule.
Too bad none of the representatives are chosen by the citizens anymore- they're all bought and paid for by the corporations, who are the real government.
I believe that limited debt is an efficient way to take risk in order to produce growth, and that the presence of a federal deficit for over 100 years actually argues strongly that the government takes its debt obligations seriously.
100 years of defaulting on debt argues that the government takes it's debt obligations seriously? Actually, it hasn't been 100 years yet- we had no debt and no deficit in 1928 and 1929, the last time that the government could be counted on to pay it's debts.
Quite the contrary. I disagree strongly with your argument in favor of torture, murder, and theft for the recovery of debt. That does not equate with a belief that defaulting on debt should be "punishment" free. I believe that it should be free from punishment by bodily injury.
Which means free from punishment- besides, above you said you agreed with the rediculous argument that failing to pay debt for 100 years is evidence of taking debt seriously.....
Lower taxes is only cures the symptoms, not the cause. Sure, raising taxes will reduce and even reverse debt. However, less income for families means more dependance on government...which will require even more tax dollars to support and staff the government to provide those service.
Depends on what you raise taxes on- after all, income for families isn't the only tax available. Given our current propensity for buying more in imports than we export- I'd suggest a shipping tax on incoming goods at the border.
See a trend? It's a downword spiral of transfering the power and responsibilty from the people to the government. Worst case scenario, we turn into a nation of communism.
Not too worst case for me (see my handle, I believe the only thing wrong with communism is capitalists like Stalin and Lenin who had a great background in stealing from people but a horrible background in engineering) but I think we're headed towards an even worse case scenario than badly run Soviet-style organized crime communism- transfering power and responsibility from the people, to the government, and from there, to a shadow government run by the big multinational corporations and the WTO. We've already given up sovreignity over our markets to them- it's an easy next step to giving them other forms of control as the government goes bankrupt. In fact, given where politicians get their campaign contributions and the recent history of he who has the biggest campaign budget is able to pay off the hackers to rig the central tabulators, I think we've pretty much abandoned democracy for that oligarchy already.
Honestly, I think what needs to happen is another ecconomic depression in order to set into motion a wake-up call and change our culture on how to save and spend properly. And, we may not be too far from it...
The really scary part when you dig into the government/trade deficits is who is buying up the debt. One day the House of Saud and the Waltons will marry, and we'll be back to living under a nobility, for they will own the government.
And worst yet- do you think the moderator knows that quote is 100% accurate?
A bit of backup for what I was saying about the United States honoring it's debt obligations: http://home.att.net/~mwhodges/debt.htm is an interesting report on how we went from oweing NOTHING to ANYBODY, to $200 million over the 20 years after WWII never getting paid off but never going up either, to the horrid situation we have today where every baby is born $25,000 in debt or more. It shows how over the last 40 years, Americans have been taking WAY more in government services than they have been paying for- and why the "surplus" was a bogus fiddling of numbers taking from FICA to support tax breaks for the rich.
I'm far from wealthy. But I'm happy to say that I'm clear out of debt. So there is something positive for having a surplus of income regardless how little it is. I've just learned I had to live withen my means.
I wish all of us could do so well! I'm trying- got a really good lesson in how horrible debt is since I got married and realized just how bad my wife's money skills really are. I'll be there in a decade or two. Too bad our government isn't as smart- do you have your $25,778.49 (as of January 19, 2005, at 03:58:33 PM GMT, see link for current number) in future taxes that you owe for government services currently rendered as well? It's amazing how many wealthy people think they got debt free and wealthy on their own- when in reality they were borrowing for all sorts of government services like roads, fire, police protection, schools, and the military. They want lower taxes- but lower taxes directly translates to more debt.
While government owned assets like used fighter jets and ships and government buildings may have some meager value, the most valuable asset of the U.S. government is its stability and its history of honoring its debt obligations.
There's also a hoard of gold in Fort Knox...but I find it interesting that you quote stability and history of honoring debt obligations- when for the past 40 years or so we've been particularily unstable and incredibly bad at honoring our debt obligations.
First of all, how do you propose to "hide the body" when you're talking about "massive violent revolution" in the United States? Word is gonna get out.
Two separate topics there- you're the one who tried to compare the government to individuals there. However- my point is that there are people currently profiting from the situation of the rich getting tax breaks by stealing from FICA- and that we can get that money back by killing those people.
Second, plundering the property of the government would only partially repay those controlling marketable government assets after the revolution.
There's more than just the property of the government at stake- there's also the property of the shadow government, the corporations, which when police protection disapears will also be up for grabs.
The government would still totally default on credit held by those not so "fortunate."
True- but the property of the rich will also be available for tribute and dispersal to the less fortuneate.
Thus, violent revolution does not prevent default; it makes default inevitable.
Rather, it makes repayment inevitable- even if that repayment hurts the real government, big business. What you fail to realize is that what you think is the government right now is just a puppet government- large corporations are who is really in control.
Third, the government has no "credit cards" to "charge up." The government sells securities, and no one's going to buy them after the violent revolution renders previously issued securities worthless.
No one should be buying them in the first place- as it's become obvious that the United States has no interest in actually raising taxes to pay that debt, because that would harm the real government- the multinational corporations that form the WTO.
Your "obvious" solution is nonsense.
Only when viewed through the eye of somebody who still thinks democracy has any meaning at all in the United States, or that a government that has been running deficits for a good hundred years now is a good credit risk.
You're now officially on the list of "people from whom I will not borrow money" along with the mob, my friends, and my family.
Good- since it's obvioius that defaulting on loans without punishment is standard operating procedure in your book.
How exactly does a _violent_ revolution collect on the loan?
By killing the people who are keeping you from collecting on the loan, you can take their property in lieu of payment.
That's like saying that the "obvious" way to collect on a debt is to shoot the person owing you money.
Thus taking their wallet....hide the body so nobody knows that they are dead and charge up the ammount of the loan on their credit cards.
It's even worse with the government though- with the individual you can say, break a leg or two and give them another week to pay up before you shoot them. Try that with the government and your attempt to force them to pay back the loan will fail- you'll end up in jail.
Well, it will serve them right- that show is the last and only reason to watch their crappy network, and it's not a very good reason at that. At least it will enable me to tape Joan of Arcadia and watch Stargate instead (currently taping Enterprise, Watching Joan, and catching the reruns on Sci-Fi channel at midnight....)
The courts must also be generous in compensating those who suffer wind-drift problems.
But of course they haven't been generous. In fact they didn't even compensate the test case for his 6 years of legal costs.
The test case in Canada tried this- AND LOST! So, nice try but nope.
Tried and failed- Monsanto won the case (though after 6 years, the farmer involved didn't have to pay any damages, at least).
When asked to justify your comment, however, you resorted to a lame 2 liner about people being astonished by the unexpected behavior of the $water_body, and going out to satisfy their natural curiousity...which is a natural reaction given normal human nature.
Superstition and religion is a natural reaction given human nature. Going against that reaction takes training. There was an equivalent Tsunami in 1833. One would think this would be taught to the kids- if the water leaves it will return.
I'd agree- but apparently UPN doesn't....sad to say. But of course, it's their own stupidity for putting it on opposite SG1
Let's just say that I've been very disappointed recently (in the last 4 years or so) of the incredible short sightedness and stupidity from two big groups of human beings- one on the Indian subcontinent, and their mirror image in New York City on Wall Street.
Oh. And profit should be corresponding to risk, too. Sure, if there is no risk, no profit.
Under capitalism, the only risk belongs to the laborer and the customer- the money is made off of the difference between what you pay the one and can charge the other.
And value of goods would depend on how much competitions cost and how much people willing to play.
Not under the Just Price Doctrine- which states that instead of competition, you cooperate with your competitors to make sure that no customer EVER pays more than 10% above cost to create the goods.
And close down my business would leave my employees with no work for the short term.
In this economy, it's the long term. But under the idea of a Just Wage Doctrine- if by some mistake happens where 10% is not enough of a return, the other members of your guild have a responsibility to hire your workers in exchange for the increased business that your departure from the scene causes. Guild ecconomics may not be flashy, it might not make anybody rich terribly quickly (though the administrators of the guilds have a tendency to control large resources to help members through lean times) but it does make sure the maximum number of people are able to participate in the economy.
Just preach what you consider right. But do it meekly -- not everyone is knowlegable. And please don't exaggerate.
I tried that- the problem is that not everyone IS knowlegable and thus you need to shock them out of the lie they've been living FIRST. Amazing how many Christians worship Mammon instead of following in the footsteps of the Apostles.
Having said that- you'll never see Les Schwab in the Fortune 500, or Alan Hansen (you can google them both). Why? Because they understand their duty to the poor. Their duty to treat people like PEOPLE, rather than like marks to steal from. They are lacking in capitalism- but they've found God.
Nope- you missed the point. The NAT Proxy isn't to get multiple users to connect. The purpose of the NAT proxy is to protect the user's identity. So no, the first user doesn't have to connect to a second USER, instead he connects to the local NAT router.