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DennisCTB
Join Date: Nov 1998
Posts: 2707 NorthWest NJ
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2011-08-06          179687

What do you TP members think of what is going on today. Lower US debt rating. Some say we should increase spending to spur employment.

I am saddened to see the US having done basically nothing to make at least our infrastructure a leader in the last decade. For example who has the highest speed trains in the world, not us, China. If we build high speed trains where will they come from, not here, probably China.

Clearly being the world's traffic cop has cost us. Buying bombs instead of butter cannot go on forever.

But what this administration and congress call economic stimulus, sending each of us a couple hundred bucks, seems so wasteful and superficial to me, when there are obvious things that need to be better. For example anyone who is ever taken the 100 year old path train from NJ to NY under the Hudson river, has to wonder why haven't they improved this in all these decades. There are thousands of examples across the US, I know capital improvements lack an immediate effect, but when do we get started.

I see us without a plan, like the parent who gives his child a $100 to spend at the Dollar Store, the child spends it in 20 minutes, so the GDP is up but all we have to show for it is garbage. So the cycle goes around and I think we just get weaker and further in debt.



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greg_g
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1816 Western Kentucky
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2011-08-06          179688

This debt ceiling business was all smoke and mirrors, and dates back to the Nixon administration. It happened quietly and behind the scenes 78 times, as recently as Jan 2010. Obama did that quietly last year, because everybody in Congress at the time just considered it status quo. But the Taxed Enough Already folks put some new blood into the game last November, which is why Congress made such a hoopla of it this year.

But the reason all that hoopla was smoke and mirrors, is that the it isn't actually the concept of a debt ceiling that is being called into question. The real concern is how we got to this point. The Federal government has simply grown into an animal that we can't afford to feed anymore. The solution is to shrink government and cut spending, NOT simply "raise the debt ceiling" so that we can buy more food for the Federal monster. That said, there are plenty of individual states that need desperately to start an effective diet, but this initiative most certainly needs to start at the top.

And further to the smoke and mirrors analogy, the media for the most part focused on the dog and pony show surrounding the mechanics of raising the debt ceiling. In my mind, they should instead have been addressing the reasons for having gotten to the point where we have to borrow trillions more just to pay the interest on a burgeoning national debt.

Classic misdirection: watch my mouth, because I don't want you to see what my hands are doing. Credit agencies like Moodys and S&P however, see through the smoke and mirrors. Rather than be distracted by the misdirection, they lowered America's credit rating NOT because of the physical act of raising the debt limit - but because of relentlessly poor financial management that actually leads to a need to raise the damn thing. If there was a balanced budget amendment in place, there wouldn't even BE such a thing as a debt ceiling in the first place.

//greg// ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2011-08-06          179691

[p]http://www.qsolv.com/images/WorkDone.jpg[/p] ....

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DennisCTB
Join Date: Nov 1998
Posts: 2707 NorthWest NJ
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2011-08-06          179694

Nice picture, unfortunately he needs to have a couple more people in the picture, congress would fit in there as well ;) ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2011-08-06          179696

Quote:
Originally Posted by DennisCTB | view 179694
Nice picture,unfortunately he needs to have a couple more people in the picture, congress would fit in there as well ;)


Yep, plenty of blame to go around including legislative and judicial branches, media, unions, and a populace that is either dependent or simply apathetic.
....

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hardwood
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 3583 iowa
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2011-08-06          179701

I probably shouldn't even post on this thread, I spent 99% of my waking hours during my working years just concentrating on what was ahead of me to get done for the day, week, year, etc.. For that reason I just trusted the government to do the right things as directed by the group of people and a Big Kahoona we elected to handle such matters.

Looks like I had my head in the sand or up somewhere else far too long. Since my somewhat retired years have come along that actually give me time to read more than the headlines and the obituaries in the daily paper I've begun to realize that a lot of things happened that I should have paid attention to, inflation for instance, it crept up on me. We get our monthly check from Uncle Sam, it is automatically deposited for us. In the beginning, five years ago, of our social security years we just used it for ordinary living expenses plus a few little odds and ends with some left over when the next check came. That's all changed, now we have to watch the balance and usually kick in a bit from savings before the next check comes.

The people at SS said we didn't need a cost of living increase because there wasn't any inflation, WOAH!, where does he buy his Wheaties? We are fortunate to have some other assets to carry us along covering what our SS checks dont, but there are a good number of older people we know who have nothing but their SS to live on. A wide variety of reasons for their situations, illness, low paying jobs that contributed little to their SS accounts, addictions to alcohol, gambling, etc. What ever their reason, this is no time for finger pointing criticizing them for not having an adequate SS income, what has happened has happened, we cannot as a society be so inhumane as to punish them by withholding basic needs.

We must somehow continue to fund SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, WIC, Rent Subsidies for the elderly and poor, etc. to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Defense and Armed Services, Highways, bridges, etc., etc., must be maintained too. I don't know this as fact, but my senses tell me their probably is enough fraud, price gouging, etc. to cut those costs quite a bit too.

Ok, that's my little sermon on what must be taken care of, now how to do it? I don't know how, and I doubt that our esteemed President and his cronies on either side of the aisle know how either. I think Carl Sagan was the first man to introduce me to Billions, and Billions, now Trillions and Trillions. The debt ceiling showdown of a week ago was nothing more than a charade to make one or the other look good at election time, why else would Obama want it to extend past the 2012 elections, even I'm smart enough to understand his second grade school yard strategies there.

Nuff from me.
Frank. ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2011-08-07          179704


Government is a cancer to the american system.

There is no one party that caused it although the liberal have decided that if they don't like it, it should be illegal so they do need to be harnessed. They should change the channel.

Greed has caused the fiscal problems and it needs to be corrected by putting the money back to those and only those that have made a contribution to the system not those that have not.

Labor unions were not supposed to be in the government even by it's creator.

The government was not supposed to be the answer to all problems.

This country will fall further if the people that get elected keep up their drunken ways! Big government, big business has hurt the development of the small business by to many laws and regulations.

Bad government grows, bad businesses fails and goes out. ....

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kthompson
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 5275 South Carolina
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2011-08-08          179711

Dennis, yes the foolishness of our federal government is hurting us, our children and at least our grandchildren.
When you have a ruling class or group that makes laws and exempts itself that in itself is enough to support fraud.

As to the amount of fraud and waste in the government, no doubt some are more efficient than others but why do we need a half dozen agencies doing the same job or suppose to be?

Our local school district has been for years deciding the buildings were outdated and building new ones to only find them undersize as soon as open. They let the outdated buildings site for 5 to 10 years for some reason before they decide how to dispose of them. Often selling them for nothing and all of sudden the new buy has nice apartments or commercial business in their NEW updated property.

I am thankful the S&P took the action they did. Maybe just maybe that will help wake up the voters. Yet for about 50% who pay no taxes what does it mean to them? They don't understand it means more of them will loose jobs and even more so find themselves with little prospect of employment as there is none.
....

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greg_g
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1816 Western Kentucky
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2011-08-08          179713

Quote:
Originally Posted by kthompson | view 179711
I am thankful the S&P took the action they did.
And right on cue, most of the media picked up the administration spin line and began perpetuating it. Rather than put the blame for the downgrade where it belongs - at the feet of those who mismanaged our finances - they're spinning the issue so as to actually lay fault with those that tried to draw attention to the out of control spending that precipitated yet another debt ceiling increase.

//greg// ....

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DennisCTB
Join Date: Nov 1998
Posts: 2707 NorthWest NJ
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2012-02-10          182373

Are we in for a Market correction today..? How much ? ....

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