[ExI] eput this crazy system out of our misery: was RE: Euthanasia

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Fri Oct 11 18:46:51 UTC 2013


On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:24 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> How did massive borrowing become not a national threat, and not
> unpatriotic?
>

I heard an interesting argument from a reasonably smart person that
continued growth of the US economy would keep the debt from ever becoming a
major problem. Now if the economy stops growing at a good pace, we're all
screwed. So it does seem extremely dangerous to make the assumption. But it
is a kind of interesting argument. It's another way to print money, in
other words. Like fractional banking.

> ****
>
> I don’t understand who is still loaning money to the US, and why.
>

Because you need to loan your money to someone. Someone who is safe.
Imagine you are a ChiCom, and you have to put your country's money in a
safe place. There are a limited number of safe places, and you have a lot
of money. In addition, there is the political leverage that money earns you
over the US government.

In this cartoon, which fox represents China and which the United States
after this transaction?

http://bit.ly/15Zjc7a





> 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?
>

Yes. Public debt and private debt are immensely different beasties.


> 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 there will be big trouble.

>   Then we have borrowed their money and spent it on the craziest stuff:
> http://www.businessinsider.com/newly-built-aircraft-set-to-go-straight-to-desert-boneyard-2013-10
>
A great example of government stupidity. Of course, those planes will last
a LONG time in Arizona, and may eventually get put to use.

> 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.
>
Well, the cargo plane props up the military-industrial complex... there is
that.

> 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.
>
Perhaps. But the economy is growing more slowly because of the increased
spending levels. I fear it won't get better until we elect more responsible
leaders.

> 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.
>
Yup.

> 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.
>
Eventually, it is a national security threat. The question is just how long
do we have before it is?

-Kelly
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