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Lets Discuss a Government Shutdown

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,137
16,532
Riding the baggage carousel.
You realize it's economically impossible for the US to "pull a Greece", right? We have control over our own currency and can unilaterally set interest rates/monetary policy, Greece doesn't. Again, look at Japan. It has the highest Debt/GDP ratio in the entire world. It's Debt/GDP ratio is higher even than Zimbabwe. And yet, the Yen has strengthened from ~133 y/usd (from when I first started spec'ing Shimano parts in 2004) to below 80 y/usd now. Running up debt doesn't debase a currency, that's based on the debt-buyer's perception of the ability to pay it back. I might not lend a homeless guy $1 because I know I'd never get it back, but I might lend a hundred bucks to a businessman to keep his company running...
Well sure. But isn't this really a semantics argument? (BTW, not trying to by an ass, I'm genuinely trying to understand this stuff.) Is not the end result the same? Say we hit debt ceiling and our continuous debt spiral is interrupted, investors lose confidence in the US ability to repay and interest rates for the US to issue debt goes up, even a little bit, that translates all the way down the economic food chain. Makes it that much harder (read more expensive) for you or me to borrow for anything, be it a car, home, CC.
What happens if peeps really panic and the US can only borrow/issue debt @ higher terms? Say 6 percent, double what it is currently? If you think we have budget issues now think what happens when our interest rate doubles. (Greek 10 year is 12.92% at this moment.:eek:)
Do I not have this correct?



As far as the US being retarded with its spending, the F22 is a perfect example. Do you know that it has still never flown in combat? We haven't dropped one single bomb or fired a single gun in anger with that thing. Eisenhower must be rolling in his grave. Military industrial complex indeed. :mad:
 
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DamienC

Turbo Monkey
Jun 6, 2002
1,165
0
DC
Bars in DC are already starting to advertise government shutdown specials with discounts for furloughed feds. :cheers:
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
I just want to know where all these people who work for the government are going to go once all this slashing spending comes down the line. It's not like there are other jobs for them to go and get. Cut military spending by half, and what... 1.5 million servicemen are without a job? That should help the economy and lower everyone's taxes.
 

zdubyadubya

Turbo Monkey
Apr 13, 2008
1,273
96
Ellicott City, MD
I just want to know where all these people who work for the government are going to go once all this slashing spending comes down the line. It's not like there are other jobs for them to go and get. Cut military spending by half, and what... 1.5 million servicemen are without a job? That should help the economy and lower everyone's taxes.
this may be obvious to most, but just FYI, soldiers salaries make up <1% of the military budget.
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
this may be obvious to most, but just FYI, soldiers salaries make up <1% of the military budget.
Says here that personnel costs 154 billion of the 650 billion total budget so thats more like 25%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

But regardless, if you cut the budget by half you'd only have half the effectiveness and need half the people, right? Might be a little simplistic, but roughly speaking, you'd still be putting a f*ckton of families out on the street.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
If the street is where God/Ayn Rand intended for them to be, then so be it

[/tehjoker]
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
Libya might be interested
No way, I saw Back to the Future...Iran, cash only.

And Pesqueeb, teh F22 flew its first combat sorties recently, I was told...back in February I beleive.

Military budgets could be controlled simply if spending patterns were smarter. If private business owners ran their shops like military units, no one would clear a profit. Its not all big ticket bombs, tanks guns and subs.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,137
16,532
Riding the baggage carousel.
And Pesqueeb, teh F22 flew its first combat sorties recently, I was told...back in February I beleive.
Lets assume this is true. Production began in 1994 with an estimated life time cost of $339 million per plane (times 183). If we actually used F22's in February that means it only took 17 years for the US to use it in combat. I know the last 17 years have been virtually combat free so I can understand why it would take so long for the aircraft to be proven. :rolleyes:

What this really proves is that the whole program was a complete waste of money and we never needed it in the first place. Hence my crack about Eisenhower. But really, how many other projects exist like this? And I'm not just talking military mind you, but money thats being pissed away on projects nobody wants and/or needs.
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Well sure. But isn't this really a semantics argument? (BTW, not trying to by an ass, I'm genuinely trying to understand this stuff.) Is not the end result the same? Say we hit debt ceiling and our continuous debt spiral is interrupted, investors lose confidence in the US ability to repay and interest rates for the US to issue debt goes up, even a little bit, that translates all the way down the economic food chain. Makes it that much harder (read more expensive) for you or me to borrow for anything, be it a car, home, CC.
What happens if peeps really panic and the US can only borrow/issue debt @ higher terms? Say 6 percent, double what it is currently? If you think we have budget issues now think what happens when our interest rate doubles. (Greek 10 year is 12.92% at this moment.:eek:)
Do I not have this correct?
Ok, that's the big part. Remember that the US is the biggest/strongest economy in the world, and that investors even now (at a relatively high deficit ratio) trust the US to keep paying. It's the only reason the 10y US Treasury is at 3.6%. That means that people trust the US Gov't so much that they're willing to lend us money at that amount, AND that the average inflation won't be more than 3.6%. A government shutdown won't actually stop US debt payments for months to come, as they'll stop paying employees first, then stop various payments to things like Medicaid/SS/Medicare, etc. Since they'll still be taking money in through estimated income tax payments, they'll be able to fund our debt payments for several more months at the very least.

So as long as the US is able to keep making interest payments, everyone's happy. Even still, a momentary hiccup *probably* wouldn't send everyone running for the hills anyway. The US is the biggest/richest/strongest country in the world. As long as investors are confident that the US *will* pay it's debts in the future, they're going to keep investing.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
Lets assume this is true. Production began in 1994 with an estimated life time cost of $339 million per plane (times 183). If we actually used F22's in February that means it only took 17 years for the US to use it in combat. I know the last 17 years have been virtually combat free so I can understand why it would take so long for the aircraft to be proven. :rolleyes:

What this really proves is that the whole program was a complete waste of money and we never needed it in the first place. Hence my crack about Eisenhower. But really, how many other projects exist like this? And I'm not just talking military mind you, but money thats being pissed away on projects nobody wants and/or needs.
It is true...I was there. It was just an FYI, I am with you on the neccesity of the program...we have a nasty tendency to try to lead the Jones' instead of simply keeping up with them. Control the $$ being pissed away is a great start...
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Cute, there's now a facebook page dedicated to the Republican's bill "Ensuring Pay for Our Military Act of 2011". Basically they want a separate military funding bill so that if they shut down the government (which is increasingly likely). I've got a better idea, how about you NOT SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT OVER YOUR EXTREME VIEWS ON ABORTION???!?
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
Cute, there's now a facebook page dedicated to the Republican's bill "Ensuring Pay for Our Military Act of 2011". Basically they want a separate military funding bill so that if they shut down the government (which is increasingly likely). I've got a better idea, how about you NOT SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT OVER YOUR EXTREME VIEWS ON ABORTION???!?
What he said. Worst part about this is going to be listening to all the posturing and "Soandso was the hero of this whole thing that never should have gotten this far anyway..." bs that will surely come in the next few days. At least we dont have to hear about Charlie Sheen anymore...
 

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
What he said. Worst part about this is going to be listening to all the posturing and "Soandso was the hero of this whole thing that never should have gotten this far anyway..." bs that will surely come in the next few days. At least we dont have to hear about Charlie Sheen anymore...
I posted something similar (to my RM post) on the FB page, and received a response from someone that women who don't want to get pregnant (and can't pay for contraception) should "keep their legs shut". Uh........ my WIFE uses contraception. Through hard work (and luck) we can afford to pay for it privately, but are you really going to tell a married woman that she should "keep her legs shut" just because she can't afford contraception??!? :think:
 

X3pilot

Texans fan - LOL
Aug 13, 2007
5,860
1
SoMD
Meh, I was going to have to keep working anyway, so good thing. At least I'll still get paid.

What will never be told is exactly how munch money was spent preparing for the shutdown. At the least, consider about 800,000 individual furlough letters had to be written and printed (cost, HR staff figuring out exactly who, etc) canceled travel reservations (non-refundable tickets the government purchases) and the list goes on and on.
 

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,669
1,713
chez moi
Yep, at least a week's lost work for at least half the federal government, plus expenses as mentioned.
 

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,137
16,532
Riding the baggage carousel.
Get ready to go full retard. :panic:
Feels like the fight over the budget was just yesterday? Oh wait, it was and no one really came out on top. Luckily (or unluckily if you're a rational person) Democrats and Republicans will have another important issue to fight over in as little about five weeks. This time around, it's the debt ceiling.

The New York Times is reporting that before Republicans agree to raise the debt ceiling, which currently rests at $14.294 trillion, they're going to attempt to force Democrats to agree to bigger spending cuts than those called for in the budget. According to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, the ceiling will be reached by May 16 at the latest. If the debt ceiling isn't raised the government could default on it's loans, leading to yet another financial crisis. The ceiling can only be raised by Congress. Lee Sachs, a former counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told The Wall Street Journal that a compromise will have to be reached because "the impact of failure would be catastrophic for years, if not decades."

Despite (and also, sort of, because) of the consequences of not raising the ceiling, Republicans will look for concessions for their votes to raise it. “We want to see real structural, cultural-type changes tied to this debt ceiling. We’re not interested in a one-off kind of savings, or anything small. There has got to be game-changing kinds of changes to get us to vote for it,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a first-term Republican from South Carolina told The Times. Mulvaney's comments were foreshadowed by Rep. Michele Bachmann's blog post yesterday that seemed to concede the fight over the budget while preparing for the next battle, "We should be playing 'big ball.' We should be fighting over trillions, not billions." Though there are surely Democrats willing to go head to head with the Republicans, Sen. Mark Warner said he doesn't think that would be the best approach. "If there's anything that we've got to learn from this, if we start with guns ablazing at each other, we're not going to be able to take on the real issue that confronts us," he said.

As loud as the fighting over the budget was, a fight over the debt ceiling will be even more important and hard fought. And once that's figured out, then there's next year's budget and at some point Democrats and Republicans are going to have to figure out some way to deal with the long term federal debt. In other words: the fighting's not even close to done yet.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/04/upcoming-fight-over-debt-ceiling/36512/
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
What is the point of a debt ceiling if you're just going to keep raising it and keep going further into debt?
 

Andyman_1970

Turbo Monkey
Apr 4, 2003
3,105
5
The Natural State
What this really proves is that the whole program was a complete waste of money and we never needed it in the first place. Hence my crack about Eisenhower. But really, how many other projects exist like this? And I'm not just talking military mind you, but money thats being pissed away on projects nobody wants and/or needs.
The F-35 for one, POS in my book. While that program is horribly behind schedule the Navy is wearing out it's F-18 Hornet's and can't buy enough new F-18 Super Hornet's to replace them........it's craziness!!! All the while they are tasked with supporting 2 wars and whatever the deal in Lybia is........:rolleyes:
 

zdubyadubya

Turbo Monkey
Apr 13, 2008
1,273
96
Ellicott City, MD
Says here that personnel costs 154 billion of the 650 billion total budget so thats more like 25%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

But regardless, if you cut the budget by half you'd only have half the effectiveness and need half the people, right? Might be a little simplistic, but roughly speaking, you'd still be putting a f*ckton of families out on the street.
Sorry I'm just now getting back to this thread Burly. FWIW, I totally agree with you on the points you made earlier, I was just tossing in a tidbit that I had heard. On the point of contention here (I did some digging around that wiki article and talked with some more people) I think we got our lines crossed. I said soldier salaries, you are saying personnel costs; which are not the same thing (personnel costs INCLUDES salaries, along with a bunch of other stuff such as pensions and such). I totally believe that if any cuts come to the defense department it should not come to cutting the amount of servicemen, because frankly these men/women and their families are definitely worth what they are being paid. The cuts need to come to the defense department and they need to come in a big way. Anywho... back to the topic at hand.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
My predictions-

- 45 will play victim.
-- He will surely make at least 3 stupid tweets about it.
- GoP will paint the Dems as whiners
- Dems will paint the GoP as Fascists (Rightly...) racists (Not all of them.) and xenophobes (When the shoe fits...)
- Nothing that actually benefits 'murikans will get done.

Who will give me odds?
 

AngryMetalsmith

Business is good, thanks for asking
Jun 4, 2006
21,075
9,778
I have no idea where I am
My predictions-

- 45 will play victim.
-- He will surely make at least 3 stupid tweets about it.
- GoP will paint the Dems as whiners
- Dems will paint the GoP as Fascists (Rightly...) racists (Not all of them.) and xenophobes (When the shoe fits...)
- Nothing that actually benefits 'murikans will get done.

Who will give me odds?
That would be a sucker's bet.

On the upside, if nothing is getting done, then nothing is getting undone either.