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Taxes, the Deficit/Debt, and the Fiscal Cliff


HeloDude

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Alright one, what's fringe about this?

I think I can speak for a decisive majority of the voting public when I say that we all hope this is the future 2016 Republican Presidental nominee.

Seriously, the current version of the GOP might be the most pathetically incompetent version in its 150+ year history. Yeah, even worse than the post depression era.

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  • 1 month later...

So according to Bill Maher (people can call him a comedian all they want, but he's very much a political influence on the left), redistribution of wealth is a good thing because it keeps the poor people from kidnapping you. And here I thought redistribution was so that Democrats could have more votes?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/12/maher_if_youre_rich_you_should_be_begging_the_government_to_redistribute_your_wealth.html

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think I can speak for a decisive majority of the voting public when I say that we all hope this is the future 2016 Republican Presidental nominee.

Seriously, the current version of the GOP might be the most pathetically incompetent version in its 150+ year history. Yeah, even worse than the post depression era.

That is the smartest, most articulate thing I have EVER seen from you. It makes me wonder about your motives, are you being serious? I hope, my worry is that you want this so Hillary/Joe might win in the event you want the conservatives (notice I didn't say Republican) to loose. Wish I would have seen this a few months ago.

Edited by matmacwc
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  • 2 years later...

Entitlements will consume 75% of incoming dollars here by 2031, 100% by 2051. Greece might be a glimpse into the future for us.

I agree for the most part...

But what do you think will happen in Greece? Will the Greeks reject the IMF proposals? Will they get kicked off the Euro? How will this affect the rest of the countries on the Euro as well as the U.S. Dollar, the Pound, etc?

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Greece also has a tax evasion problem on an absurd scale in addition to their out of control spending. There seems to be no appetite for addressing it. Blaming the Germans for not bailing them out seems to be the preferred solution. In short, they're fucked. We have a spending problem, primarily driven by Social Security and healthcare (obamacare, medicare, and chip) both at about 24% of the budget apiece. SS is simple to fix, index it to inflation instead of providing cost of living adjustments. This makes sense, but old folks oppose it so it's nearly impossible politically. How you drive down healthcare costs, I do not know. European countries get better healthcare results than us at a significantly lower price, so we should probably look into whatever it is they are doing. But we probably won't. In short, we're fucked as well.

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I agree--Greece is fucked...but they did it to themselves, regardless of whether they have tax evaders or not, it's still their economic policy that did it. The good news is that if they get kicked off the Euro, the Drachma will be worth considerably less and the wife and I can take a trip to Greece on the relatively cheap.

As for us, we're fucked, but our history/system will allow itself to survive a bit longer. As for how to fix it--in addition to reducing the spending, how about the federal government sells off some of that massive amount of land it owns in the mountain west and Alaska? A lot of people (referring to American citizens not the international investors) would love to own some of the land in either the BLM or National Forest. Some of that land can be developed for mining/natural resources, and some can be just owned because upper-middle class and rich people want to own some beautiful land without paying an arm and a leg for it (since right now the only land that is for sale is currently owned by someone else). The problem is that the progressives will never allow it as the environmentalists would consider it a tragedy...even to sell 10-20% of it, without touching the national parks. So the progressives would rather just take more of the wealth via taxes, which in turn reduces investment and thus reduces growth.

To understand what made our economy massively grow in the late 1800's and the early and mid 1900's, you have to understand the history of what happened at that time...and given the nature of our changing American culture and its politics and the world economy, I don't see how that massive economic growth of the past can ever be seen again. And with our corrupt politicians getting to score their tax/spending bills on silly assumptions that will never happen, it's no suprise that it is not a question of if we're fucked, but when it will truly happen. Eventually one has to make a decision of when the best time to convert those 0 and 1's (that represent our wealth in banks/investments) to tangible assets such as property/land, machinery, precious metals (if you believe they'll still be worth something worth having in the future), supplies, etc. Right now Greeks are trying to salvage what they can from their bank accounts while they still can...theirs is a lesson to be learned out of all this...

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The Democratic Republic is failing the test of history unfortunately. Democracies are not proving capable of disciplining themselves and living well outside of its means, all of them are in debt, unfortunately I believe the next century will probably be dominated by the authoritarian systems that while not as productive or creative as free societies they have far greater abilities to defend their borders, economies, culture and harness what they have via command and conformity to out maneuver societies that require consensus to move.

This quote is attributed usually to Alexander Fraser Tytler but has been attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, either or it may be how it unfolds:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilisations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Not sure if we are at complacency to apathy or apathy to dependence yet.
Edited by Clark Griswold
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Democracies are not proving capable of disciplining themselves and living well outside of its means, all of them are in debt...

A democracy, in its definition, is tyranny from the majority. It is a state of mob rules. It's why pure democracies should always be feared and will always fail. I can argue that all of these countries that you're referring to have become more of a democracy lately, not less of one...hence the problem.

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A democracy, in its definition, is tyranny from the majority. It is a state of mob rules. It's why pure democracies should always be feared and will always fail. I can argue that all of these countries that you're referring to have become more of a democracy lately, not less of one...hence the problem.

Good point but expanding on that idea I think we have seen the high water mark of democratization in China, Russia, KSA, etc... democracy requires consensus which is harder to get these days in large, diverse nations as the coalescing ideas of nationality are being assaulted by the atomizing of ethnicity, religion, class, cultural preference (religious v. secular), etc...

It is sad that the democratic republic, democracy electing representatives who in theory are not governed by the passions, parochial and selfish interests are not able to make objective decisions based on outcomes best in the long term, at best the modern democracy seems to really only be capable of lurching from one edge to the next barely avoiding going over it.

Edited by Clark Griswold
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Greece also has a tax evasion problem on an absurd scale in addition to their out of control spending. There seems to be no appetite for addressing it. Blaming the Germans for not bailing them out seems to be the preferred solution. In short, they're fucked. We have a spending problem, primarily driven by Social Security and healthcare (obamacare, medicare, and chip) both at about 24% of the budget apiece. SS is simple to fix, index it to inflation instead of providing cost of living adjustments. This makes sense, but old folks oppose it so it's nearly impossible politically. How you drive down healthcare costs, I do not know. European countries get better healthcare results than us at a significantly lower price, so we should probably look into whatever it is they are doing. But we probably won't. In short, we're fucked as well.

That's the smartest thing I've read on the internet in quite some time.

5 ways to fix SS - holding my breath (not) for any of the canidates for POTUS to demonstrate leadership and offer solutions...

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes

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5 ways to fix SS - holding my breath (not) for any of the canidates for POTUS to demonstrate leadership and offer solutions...

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes

Social Security in its current form is a Ponzi scheme--pure and simple. The money is collected by the government and borrowed against, thus the only way for your money to grow is for the government to collect more taxes and/or have a a continuous larger pool to collect SS payments from in prefer to pay off the previous payments.

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Social Security in its current form is a Ponzi scheme--pure and simple. The money is collected by the government and borrowed against, thus the only way for your money to grow is for the government to collect more taxes and/or have a a continuous larger pool to collect SS payments from in prefer to pay off the previous payments.

Disagree respectfully.

Why Social Security Is Not a Ponzi Scheme

I agree with your sentiment (I infer) that it has become something it was originally not designed to be, which was a very modest pension program for widows, elderly and dependents when their provider was gone or unable to work any longer. Reform and modernize, proceed as required.

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