[ExI] Repudiating the national debt

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace

Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 4:53 PM

To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>

Subject: Re: [ExI] Repudiating the national debt

 

>>…I see default as coming eventually (15-ish yrs) but not by choice…This will be bad.  We will not choose this path willingly.  This path was chosen for us, by us, previously.

 

spike

>…And what are WE doing about it?  Kicking the can down the road once again, as usual?

 

I fear so sir.

 

 

>…What SHOULD we be doing about it?  Trim the military?  bill w

 

 

That would be a good start: cut it waaaay back.  Close bases.  Retire some of our military might.  That will hurt, but it will happen anyway.  We can do it now by choice, or… probably end up selling a lot of those fireworks to the highest bidder.

 

Second step: create a new constitutional amendment that requires the Fed to balance its budget year to year, as states must do.  

 

This too has its consequences.  The federal budget is then dependent on the previous year’s tax revenue.  So… a Federal employee does not know how much she will make.  It will make it difficult to borrow to the hilt if one does not know what payments one can make.  It might be less than this year.  This week’s paycheck might be less than last week.

 

Before you read further, why does the previous comment sound so weird to us?  Think about it.  Understanding why that concept is so hard to imagine tells us a lot about us.

 

This week’s paycheck might be more, but not a lot more: in surplus years, the overall salaries cannot rise more than say 4%.  But they can fall 20% in one year, if the economy sucks.  It will then take several years to return to the previous level.  If they argue we cannot attract good people, I point out we are apparently failing to attract good people now.  The prominent ones I see are not good people.  Lois Lerner is not good people.

 

If Federal government workers have a variable paycheck, would not they feel a little more sympathy for the businesswoman?

 

spike

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160517/be0c568a/attachment.html>