The Goat Pen

Owlman wrote:During WWII, wasn't our debt greater than 100% of GDP?

But to partially answer your question, not too much when (while) the world is prioritizing buying our debt

At the end of WWII, yes....but IMO not completely comparable....there was no base line budgeting then, and demographics (young vs old) was essentially reversed from today...(and we had the only standing (literally) economy)...and there was no EPA driving up the cost of petroleum.

Soooo, to sum up your answer, whatever Obammer/Dems spend/waste, you defend. I'm writing all this down for 2016 and Rubio is prez.

[youtube]8mZ39Zet97Q[/youtube]

The EPA is such a minor part of the cost of petroleum. The cost of petroleum is primarily due to a small number of refineries, speculation and the fact that we can't dominate the market anymore as it is now worldwide. China drives. India drives. We're still the biggest market, but not as controlling as we used to be.

As for WWII, of course it's not the same. That war's cost were considered part of the budget (they weren't hidden). The whole country was asked to sacrifice. Taxes went up. Wasn't trying to say it was the same. You asked how high, I was just pointing out that it's been over 100% before. It's a long-term debt problem, not a short-term debt issue. Long-term solutions, not short-term ones.

Owlman wrote:The EPA is such a minor part of the cost of petroleum. The cost of petroleum is primarily due to a small number of refineries, speculation and the fact that we can't dominate the market anymore as it is now worldwide. China drives. India drives. We're still the biggest market, but not as controlling as we used to be.

As for WWII, of course it's not the same. That war's cost were considered part of the budget (they weren't hidden). The whole country was asked to sacrifice. Taxes went up.

Taxes going up (specifically) were not the sacrifices that everyone was making. The real sacrifices were that there were NO consumable goods to buy.

GM, Chrysler, and Ford made ZERO cars and trucks from 1942 to 1944. None. Zero. The plants were busy building tanks and jeeps. The people back home "sacrificed" by driving their older beat up cars longer. They had money in their pockets with nothing to buy. So they "sacrificed" and bought War Bonds (they saved.)

You "sacrificed" by pitching in and conserving. Examples? There were rubber drives. There were scrap metal drives. FDR imposed a Federal speed limit of 35 mph (to conserve gasoline for the military) but that didn't matter much because there really weren't any roads in this country in 1942 that could handle much more than 35 mph. That was Eisenhower and the 1950s before we started getting those lovely interstates. Those were the sacrifices people were making.

Taxes went up to pay for the enormous military spending. YOU want taxes to go up NOT to pay for a huge, 1940s-esque military industrial complex but INSTEAD, to pay for entitlements. You don't want tanks, jet planes, missles, unmanned drones, and Agies Frigates, you want welfare checks for single moms, government health care for one and all, and expensive civil servant jobs in money losing federal agencies for the brain dead. To you, that is "sacrifice."

I would gladly turn you into a human sacrifice...

It's sorta simple. All income is taxed at 27%. All imports are taxed at 200%. What the next question?

Jungle Rat wrote:It's sorta simple. All income is taxed at 27%. All imports are taxed at 200%. What the next question?

I'll buy in. What party has this in their platform? Where do I sign up?

Oh that's right right, I keep forgetting, Rat lives in a dream world where the ideal never happens because there are too many people who would get "hurt" in this methodology.

I wish you would get hurt, by any means...

Owlman wrote:During WWII, wasn't our debt greater than 100% of GDP?

But to partially answer your question, not too much when (while) the world is prioritizing buying our debt

Isn't it a big mistake to assume this will go on forever?

At some point won't China and others just assume that we can never pay off our debts in the future?

In 2011 $454,393,280,417.03 was the interest cost on the national debt. That isn't chump change folks.

hedge wrote:And yet if you go to California, you see lots and lots of people who appear to be doing very well and seem to be very happy. Somehow it just doesn't square with your doomsday scenario. But it sounds good, at least to a certain type of mind. Oh well, carry on. The end is nigh. Repent!

California's loss of businesses in 2010 and 2011 (after leading the nation in business growth from 2000-2009) was more a function of the economy than over-regulation. It's more expensive to live in CA and all the costs associated with starting a business are higher than other places, especially the cost of bringing in talent from outside the state since they'll have to find housing. Hat in hand are the number of people who left California because of the housing boom - a number of people (including a significant portion of the Black population) moved to the south and southwest because they couldn't afford to buy homes in California. [Case in point: I have a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom home in a slightly upper middle class section of the Valley in Los Angeles. My late brother owned a 3-bed/3-bath house in an upper middle class suburb east of Cleveland. When he died in 2008, I inherited his house, which appraised at 1/21 of the value of my house in LA. 1/21 of the value of my house. 1/21 of the value of my house. 1/21 of the value of my house. Worse yet - I got ZERO offers on it at the appraised price. And no, I do not live in a million dollar house).

Utah consistently ranks as among the best states for business. According to Gaebler, Utah had roughly fifty nine thousand small businesses with at least 1 employee besides the owner in 2011. California - which ranks worst, according to Forbes - had over one point two million.

Of the top 100 companies to work for, California had 18 of them - only Texas (12) and New York (10) came anywhere close.

The issue is not the negative business climate, but rather the population density (especially in LA, SD, SF, OAK) which makes the cost of living so high.

At the height of the housing boom (2006), one of my members sold her home in Moreno Valley (aka "The Sticks", about 80 miles southeast of LA) and bought THREE houses in suburban Houston - on adjacent lakefront lots - with the proceeds of the sale. She moved her daughter's family into one house and her son's into the other.

innocentbystander wrote:

Jungle Rat wrote:It's sorta simple. All income is taxed at 27%. All imports are taxed at 200%. What the next question?

I'll buy in. What party has this in their platform? Where do I sign up?

Oh that's right right, I keep forgetting, Rat lives in a dream world where the ideal never happens because there are too many people who would get "hurt" in this methodology.

What party? Therefore lies the problem.

Isn't it a big mistake to assume this will go on forever?

Who's doing that? I haven't seen anybody on this thread make this assumption.

Debt, loss of business/tax base results, but hey, California's fine...no worries.


http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/28/ ... f-detroit/

Economy Grew 2.7 Percent in Third Quarter - Reuters

http://news.msn.com/us/economy-grew-27- ... rd-quarter

Question..now that the election is over...good news is good news again, right? For everybody?

Nope, we're in the midst of an apocalypse. Anybody suggesting anything short of that is simply ignorant of the facts. That home, those cars, that food - all illusions. We are days away from wholesale, universal cannibalism. Already doing it in California...

bluetick wrote:Economy Grew 2.7 Percent in Third Quarter - Reuters

http://news.msn.com/us/economy-grew-27- ... rd-quarter

Question..now that the election is over...good news is good news again, right? For everybody?

Answer....read your own post.

The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter, but the momentum is unlikely to be sustained as the nation braces for deep cuts in government spending and tax increases early next year.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, as faster inventory accumulation and export growth offset weak consumer spending and the first drop in business investment in more than a year.

While the growth pace was much quicker than the 2.0 percent rate the government estimated last month and the best since the fourth quarter of 2011, it was hardly a sign of strength in the economy given the boost from restocking and weaker consumer spending.

That will likely be lost in the fourth quarter and inventories may be a drag on growth, which is already being weighed down by fears of austerity, known as the fiscal cliff.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected GDP growth to be raised to a 2.8 percent pace. Business inventories added 0.77 percentage point to third-quarter GDP growth. They were previously estimated to have subtracted 0.12 percentage point.

Excluding inventories, GDP rose at a revised 1.9 percent rate, underscoring sluggish demand. Final sales of goods and services produced in the United States had been previously estimated to have increased at a 2.1 percent pace.

Somebody please send me some food, I haven't eaten for days. It's getting cold, all the wood has already been scavenged and burned, please help!

I read every word. The 2.7 GDP growth is a positive. Stronger production and stronger exports outweighed a dip in consumer spending and business investment, according to the story. That news predated a very strong showing for the holiday buying season that began 6 days ago.

The downside of the article's good tidings is how the momentum likely won't be sustained due to the impending fiscal cliff. Or as some are starting to phrase it, we're 'going Grover the cliff.'

The landscape is bleak. Wild dogs now control most of the cities (ask Ricky Bobby). Food is nonexistent. The end is nigh....

hedge wrote:The landscape is bleak. Wild dogs now control most of the cities (ask Ricky Bobby). Food is nonexistent. The end is nigh....

Worse - in California, we're being overrun by gay Mexicans wearing "Hillary 2016" tee shirts (with butt-cheek less leather pants).