The federal debt


The row over the debt ceiling is going down to the wire

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Readers' comments


a tin can

If these clowns don't come up with a deal, the first thing that should be stopped on the 2nd is Congressional payroll and pension benefits to former Congressmen who helped get us to this point.


This all points up the phoniness and hypocrisy of the GOP Congressional "leadership." WT Economist has it right. These people are patriots?! They're thugs. As Krugman wrote in his column last week, they make Tony Soprano-style Mafiosi look like little old ladies at a garden tea party. "Nice little economy you have here; it'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it" while carrying baseball bats. They are beholden to the rich and the moneyed lobbyists and the rest of America can go to hell. Why doesn't Obama SAY something? The GOP wants to slash/slash/slash anything that helps the poor and the middle class, all in the rubric of "smaller govt." and "lower taxes." They don't care about the welfare of the nation or anything but their own power and privilege.


Why bother with the inconsequential monkey show on Capitol Hill? It's a sure bet that the little guys of the country will be spectacularly screwed in the end no matter what the Crooks/Con-men do.

Short US dollar; buy silver and gold.

Better still, sell everything and move to a different country for 10 - 20 years.


So what we have here is an ultra-conservative wing of the Republican party that's finally in a position to put to work the "best" of zombie Reaganomics, gleefully preparing to strike not just against basic economic theory but, with their stubborn insistence that lower taxes is the key to erasing deficits, apparently math itself. Great.

It reminds me of a nice quote from "The Dark Knight", in which The Joker admits to Harvey Dent "I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it."


Remember the old epitaph for Willie McKay?

'Here lies the body of Williee McKay,
Who died defending his right of way.
He was right, dead right,as he sped along -
And now he's as dead as if he'd been wrong.'

Aside from being mulishly wrong, the Republicans are working up a good script for being Dead AND Wrong, tosay nothing of mathematically illiterate. You don't build by cutting corners; somebody has to build cornerstones for those corners in the first place. Making sure as many as possible lose their jobs is not exactly the swiftest way to go about it.

WT Economist

If the blackmail continues, I say let it blow.

Generation Greed wanted the Reagan & Bush II tax cuts.

Generation Greed wanted no limits on Medicare, a Medicare prescription drug plan, etc. Any restraint on what other people are forced to pay for their health care would amount to death panels.

Generation Greed jacked up the regressive payroll tax and increased the Social Security retirement age for younger generations, then spent the resulting Social Security surplus on itself and used it to offset progressive income tax cuts.

Generation Greed didn't invest in the infrastructure.

Generation Greed wasn't willing to suffer any inconveniences or higher short term prices to end U.S. energy dependency.

And then, Generation Greed was outraged that the federal government might do something to provide some health care assurances for those under 65, so it voted in a coalition that wants to end Medicare -- but only for those under 55.

In the private sector, those following Generation Greed have had lower median cash earnings, and have been less likely to have employer-provided pensions and health insurance.

Generation Greed expects worse off younger generations to buy houses and stocks from them at high prices. With what money? So federal policies have deperately tried to prevent the fall of these asset prices to levels younger generations might be able to afford. Money has been borrowed or printed to pay for this, to be paid back by those whose housing prices were inflated.

While Republicans have done most of the pandering to Generation Greed over the past 30 years at the national level, Democrats have been busy retroactively enhanceing the pensions of state and local government employees. And then cutting the pay and benefits of future hires.

Generation Greed has left the country broke. Now they are feeling guilty about the deficit. Let it blow now. The alternative is having it blow later. If your parents happen to be less greedy members of Generation Greed, you can take care of them directly, rather than cycling the money through the government.



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