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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, October 10, 2013 1:36 PM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list<br><b>Subject:</b> [ExI] eput this crazy system out of our misery: was RE: Euthanasia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'> On Oct 10, 2013, at 12:39 PM, spike wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span> I don’t understand why US creditors are as calm as they are. <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>Well just today there are hints that the Republicans may have found a little sanity concerning the debt ceiling and won't set off the dynamite suicide vest they have strapped to their chest for 6 weeks, and the stock market went up 323 points<span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ja, cool about the stock market. Now about that business of borrowing money to pay our debts, if we do that, we haven’t paid off any debts at all. We just rearrange debts. If no one challenges it, the insane practice goes on unabated. We had this guy who told us in 2006 that this was a national threat, unpatriotic, etc. So we elected him president. He not only didn’t try to fix it, he switched sides. His former argument regarding increasing the debt limit is far more convincing than the one he is using now. How did massive borrowing become not a national threat, and not unpatriotic?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I don’t understand who is still loaning money to the US, and why. If you were a banker and some yahoo came in saying he needed to borrow money to pay interest on what he has already borrowed, you would say that guy is bankrupt. Not will go bankrupt, but is now. We have a president who says raising the borrowing limit doesn’t add to the debt. How does that work? Do we have two different definitions of the term debt?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span> This government healthcare scheme DEFINITELY does shift the burden onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>To hell with them, let them fight their own wars. Productivity improves, so a dollar today is far more valuable than a dollar will be to my grandchildren. John K Clark<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Hmmm, perhaps. But maybe not. We have held assumptions of exponential growth forever, and based all our spending on that assumption. What happens if future generations are not as rich as we are? Then we have borrowed their money and spent it on the craziest stuff: </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/newly-built-aircraft-set-to-go-straight-to-desert-boneyard-2013-10">http://www.businessinsider.com/newly-built-aircraft-set-to-go-straight-to-desert-boneyard-2013-10</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If we go with the assumption that wasteful spending is a good thing, why not waste it on something that might somehow pay in the future, like manufacturing and warehousing billions in solar panels and inverters? If we are just wasting the money anyway, why not waste it on that? You can get a lot of solar panels for the price of one useless cargo plane.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>My prediction is that the congress will eventually compromise and pass some kind of budget, perhaps a pumped-up version of sequestration. Life will go on. Eventually the economy will grow enough to accommodate the spending level we have sustained for the past five years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We have seen already that there is plenty of room to cut government. The sequestration cuts they have made so far were so nearly painless, they had to go out of their way to make the cuts annoying. I got a call this morning from where we had reservations to camp next weekend, saying the fed had closed the campground. They didn’t refund my reservation money. I have gone up into the Sierras every fall for the last several years and I have never seen a federal agent anywhere. So closing that campground didn’t save the government anything, not one dollar. They did it just to make life difficult. So I say very well, close the campgrounds and monuments, keep the pressure on congress. Do a version of healthcare which does not require government subsidy. Give a temporary debt limit increase, say 100 billion dollars, then let’s go at it again, extract a few cuts and give them another 100 billion when that is gone. Let’s get on with it, but not by just borrowing more and more and more money. It’s unpatriotic. It’s a national security threat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>