#137080 - 03/05/10 01:03 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Sugarnutz]
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Founding Member
Registered: 03/18/01
Posts: 2429
Loc: Florida
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If Obama Care passes with a public option I'll quit my job the next day so I can sign up. I thought it was Pelosi Care? Which bumper sticker am I supposed to use here? I think she is referring to Medicaid, no? Income based government help? No insurance company would touch her due to her pre existing condition, and in the current system, that is her only option for help, as treatment is extremely expensive. If you were to (oh so intelligently) quit your job, how could you pay the premiums on your public health insurance? Or are you saying you would quit so you could qualify for Medicaid under the current system?
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#137082 - 03/05/10 01:23 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Nick Batzdorf]
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Founding Member
Registered: 04/15/99
Posts: 11959
Loc: Los Angeles, CA, USA
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And here you go: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/debt-is-a-political-issue/And if you do the arithmetic of debt service, that really does seem to suggest that debt isn’t a problem. To stabilize the real value of debt, all the government has to do is pay the real interest on it. So suppose that we add debt equal to 100 percent of GDP, which is much more than currently projected; servicing that debt should cost only 1.4 percent of GDP, or 7 percent of federal spending. Why should that be intolerable?
And even that, you could argue, is too pessimistic. To stabilize the debt/GDP ratio, all you need is to pay r-g, where r is the real interest rate and g the economy’s real growth rate; and right now r-g looks, ahem, negative.
And this benign view of debt isn’t just hypothetical: countries have, in reality, run up immense debt/GDP ratios without going insolvent: see the history of Britain, above.
So what’s the problem? Confidence. If bond investors start to lose confidence in a country’s eventual willingness to run even the small primary surpluses needed to service a large debt, they’ll demand higher rates, which requires much larger primary surpluses, and you can go into a death spiral.
So what determines confidence? The actual level of debt has some influence — but it’s not as if there’s a red line, where you cross 90 or 100 percent of GDP and kablooie; see the chart above. Instead, it has a lot to do with the perceived responsibility of the political elite.
What this means is that if you’re worried about the US fiscal position, you should not be focused on this year’s deficit, let alone the 0.07% of GDP in unemployment benefits Bunning tried to stop. You should, instead, worry about when investors will lose confidence in a country where one party insists both that raising taxes is anathema and that trying to rein in Medicare spending means creating death panels.
And in case anyone didn't follow this: "right now r-g looks, ahem, negative" he's saying that disinflation is the worry - as I posted earlier
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#137085 - 03/05/10 06:04 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Nick Batzdorf]
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Founding Member
Registered: 11/08/01
Posts: 3411
Loc: MA, USA
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Nick, I know you like to rely on opinions of liberal economists... not saying they are all wrong. Sure they're smarter than I'm. But I do prefer to read wide variety of opinions with emphasis on real numbers and historical facts. Here is an example: HERE
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#137086 - 03/05/10 06:20 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Kecinzer]
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Founding Member
Registered: 04/15/99
Posts: 11959
Loc: Los Angeles, CA, USA
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The problem is that those aren't the real numbers. A quick search of the CBO turned up this, for example: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/112xx/doc11231/03-05-apb.pdfOf course it's not looking good, but going on an austerity program in the middle of the second worst financial crisis in our history is a terrible idea.
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#137087 - 03/05/10 08:58 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Nick Batzdorf]
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Founding Member
Registered: 11/08/01
Posts: 3411
Loc: MA, USA
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Nick, it's pretty well explained in the video (above) why the CBO numbers don't represent the actual reality.
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#137089 - 03/05/10 09:33 PM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: Kecinzer]
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Founding Member
Registered: 04/15/99
Posts: 11959
Loc: Los Angeles, CA, USA
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#137091 - 03/06/10 12:59 AM
Re: Obama signs Patriot Act extension!
[Re: ExcelAV]
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Founding Member
Registered: 11/08/01
Posts: 3411
Loc: MA, USA
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He says it best. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08rx3JmspnI!
Brilliant.
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