A nightmarish scenario...
By louisehartmann
Of what might happen if Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit, is beginning to emerge. According to analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center – if the debt limit isn’t raised by the end of February – then a chain reaction of events will happen that will ruin both the United States’ and global economy. To begin with, the Treasury Department has to make roughly 100 million payments a month, to pay for things already spent by Congress. Without an increase in the debt limit – those payments will not be able to go out.
Yes, in the short term, the Treasury can prioritize what they pay out first – and keep payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education, and Defense going for a little while – but that would mean everything else would cease getting funding after March 1st. That includes food safety inspectors, prisons, researchers, courts, the FAA, and the list goes on and on. And then there’s the subsequent shock to global financial markets, that will occur once America defaults on her debt – and the benchmark interest rate for US debt skyrockets – forcing rates on credit cards, mortgages, and complex derivatives to spike as well. The interest on our debt will go up – revenue into the government will go down – and we’ll be in an even worse fiscal situation than we were before.
This would be a nightmare for everyone. Yet, it’s exactly what House Republicans are willing to bring about, unless President Obama agrees to significant cuts in Medicare and Social Security Insurance programs. There’s no other way to describe this than economic terrorism. And the President must cut off negotiations with these terrorists right now – and embrace either the 14th Amendment, or the trillion-dollar platinum coin, to raise the debt limit on his own
Comments
#2
Great idea, lets just steal it from the rich -- problem solved. Mob rule, I'll go get some torches and pitch forks. But wait a minute, what happens when we have no more rich people?
#3
Somehow we made it through the 1995 debt ceiling crisis not only in one piece but had some of the most conservative and balanced spending while I have been alive.
The problem is not the revenue, its the spending.....the problem is not the debt ceiling, its lack of control by congress with respect to their spending. I have a credit card and I can keep asking for a higher debt limit but at some point, the company will say no...."Spend within your budget". I realize this is hard given the inability of the Senate to produce a budget.
We don't have a debt ceiling problem, we have a spending problem.
#4
Alex jones rolled Pierce Morgan on the second amendment rights, hillarious in your face smack down.
#5
Hey, I've got a great idea! Kill off all the old people! ☠ But, gas chambers would have been quicker. ;-{
It looks like no one will touch Pentagon spending and blame everything on the social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Why?
Quote MaxKeiser show #390: Why is the Pentagon "off the table"? "According to the chart they put up (adjusted for real inflation adjusted dollars), we are now spending more than the Cold War, Vietnam, and the recent build up."-Stacey Herbert
"The Arlington National Cemetary..that's America's answer to inflation. It's the deflationary forces of genocide..."-Max Keiser
Yes, Max Keiser clowns around a lot but there is a serious message in this that is closer to truth. They made a number of very interesting points in this episode. Another point is that real wars have always been preceded by economic ones. And a very real economic war has been going on for some time now. Too bad the rich couldn't have been less selfish and hateful over the years but then, I guess, it is just not within their nature is it? Soylent Green, anyone? Seig Heil!
And how many people know that the US is now sending in military forces into 35 spots in Africa? China is all over Africa taking their oil. Like the US in the Middle East we are rearranging our chess board to prevent China from accessing oil. They also mentioned the tension between China and Japan.
Quote Andrew Sullivan as quoted on this show: "History is replete with examples of great powers who undid themselves by spending on war and empire - in the end often with debt - while neglecting the core concerns of the domestic economy. Hegemonic America is following imperial Spain and imperial Britain into the same morass. But it is a choice, not a fate."
Quote asahi.com as quoted on this show: "Chinese think tank: conflict inevitable between Japan, China over Senkakus"
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201212150020
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/special/isles_dispute/AJ201210170041
#6
So we redistribute the wealth of the top 1%? Why not the top 3%? Whats the criteria? I want to know because as you need more money, I want to know how far down you go. Or will you just keep taking the top 1%?
If I personally own a 100 million dollar company and my total worth is 101 million dollars....do I have to sell the company to pay the tax? What if I sell the company to the Chinese? Start thinking about implemenation before you get to grab happy with other people's money.
#7
Quote Global: "But wait a minute, what happens when we have no more rich people?"
Then maybe we can finally get some real democracy instead of the bought sham of democracy they want us to believe in and support.
Rich people are a cancer to democracy.
And besides it was the rich people who became rich by stealing from everyone else in the first place.
#8
LOL....we all become the "Rich" people. Then I suspect that taking money from others will not be the great option it once was. I am not sure the progressives have thought through the whole redistribution thing. In addition to the problem you indicated, there will be issues along the way such as motivation....why work hard to be rich when it will be taken from you....or you move to a less "Generous" country.
#9
And besides it was the rich people who became rich by stealing from everyone else in the first place.
Please explain how.....I have purchased many Microsoft products and gotten value for my money. I did not see Bill Gates putting a gun to my head to buy the software.
#10
Quote jpohl:"We don't have a debt ceiling problem, we have a spending problem."
So, then, why are the people who are most loudly screaming about a debt problem the biggest supporters of wasteful DOD spending?
And it seems to me that there are two credit cards...one that is needed to keep people from starving to death.
And one that is used for buying luxury items like yachts and expensive entertainment... like killing lots of people.
The first one has a spending limit that is kept artificially low...starving people.
The second one has no spending limit that is killing lots of people.
I think that both of these ideas fits in to the current scheme of world depopulation that the rich have been wanting for a long time now.
Ever watch the movie The Hunger Games?
#11
Quote jpohl: "So we redistribute the wealth of the top 1%? Why not the top 3%? Whats the criteria?"
What's wrong with a progressive solution rather than an incremental one. The more you make, the more you have to give back. Instead of large incremental jumps say the top 1% or 2% or 3%...or those who make over $1million/year or over $500,000/yr or over $100,000/yr why not for every $1000/yr you pay a gradually increasing tax...a fraction of a percent?
I think the way they are doing it now is just a divide and conquer tactic pitting those who have drank the capitalist Cool Aid, believing that they too will one day "make it" and those who have "made it" against the rest of us who will, most likely, never make it (because we are not devious, or conniving, or selfish, or greedy as those who have, maybe?).
And as for spending? Let's have public beheadings of politicians who are found to be porking it up or taking bribes (campaign contributions). And instead of massive Pentagon spending...have our Generals battle it out with other Generals instead of sacrificing our sons and daughters, uncles and fathers..and most of all...innocent civilians in other countries.
#12
Quote jpohl: "...why work hard to be rich when it will be taken from you....or you move to a less "Generous" country."
With a truly progressive tax system the rich will still be rich and some people will always aspire to that position...they just won't be so filthy rich, as they are now, that they could never really benefit from it, ever! But a whole lot of other people will not be so desperate and struggling to survive. Their children are innocent victims of a system based solely on greed where the few at the top were, in many cases, just lucky or ruthless. Most of these rich people never really "earned" all of that wealth...they inherited it and/or they were more skilled at deceit and manipulation of other people, or they were just plain lucky.
#13
I think I found the solution, all the far left should become a Omish or a Hurrerite. Its perfect, everyone has the same house, same income, same food, work the same amount of hours. A Liberal dream isn't it. Oh except the fact you have to work hard.
As I read day after day of all the ways the Liberals are trying to steal money from weathly people it is clear to me the problem is simple. The number of people that work for a living has been out numbered by the amount of people who vote for a living. Kinda sad isn't it.
#14
Quote jpohl: ".I have purchased many Microsoft products and gotten value for my money. I did not see Bill Gates putting a gun to my head to buy the software."
Actually, not a real gun...with bullets...but a more devious "gun"...a psychological one...that compels us to buy their products.
Why do you suppose so many people feel compelled to buy products? Advertisers, in all of their devious ways from TV commercials to subliminal inserts of products in movies and TV shows, knows very well how to control people's minds and actions. Some might argue that we can all, by choice, ignore these psychological snares and not buy these advertised products based on common sense.
The greedmeisters have honed their tools of dissecting our brains and know what neurons, axons, and dendrites to zap to get us to act in our own worst interests and in their best interests. They have made us all desire to have things...things that the rich have...that we are inferior no-bodies without these things...and they have made it possible for us to get some of these things (for the short term anyway--read the fine print) with trickster gimmicks like credit cards..debit cards..easy mortgages...no money down.
Like lemmings drawn to the cliff overlooking the ocean to the tune of the piper the rich are annihilating the suckers who believed in the system, who drank the Cool Aid.
Like Nazi prisoners, disrobed, stripped of all their wealth, gold teeth fillings, etc, humiliated, and then sent to their death in the gas chambers, people around the world are about to meet the same kind of fate from those greedsters who are evil and most vile.
#15
Quote Kend: "...all the ways the Liberals are trying to steal money from weathly people.."
It is obvious that it was the rich people, who now have all the money, that stole from the rest of us in the first place. Things were going along just fine until a little over 30 years ago when Reagan first fired all the airline controllers..before which most people were still making a fairly decent living with decent health care, etc. But since then, businesses and corporations began to cut back on wages and benefits. Then they began to ship our jobs overseas.
THEY were the ones to start this economic war against the rest of us. THEY are the ones that have already stolen from us. Now, it is time we steal some of it back!
#16
Quote Kend: "Its perfect, everyone has the same house, same income, same food, work the same amount of hours. A Liberal dream isn't it. Oh except the fact you have to work hard."
That's not what we want and you know it! And a progressive tax system and government controls and laws to keep the capitalist wolves from devouring everyone else (as is the case now) would still have very wealthy people but would not have a starving class that replaced the middle and lower classes.
#17
Very good rebuttals !
#18
Thank you, JohnGutta! ☮
#19
Quote jpohl: "What if I sell the company to the Chinese? Start thinking about implemenation before you get to grab happy with other people's money."
First off...it is a good chance that you already sold part of the company to the Chinese..the labor part..our jobs.
"other people's money?" it was ours to begin with until it was stolen from us by selfish, greedy capitalist pigs who are so Onanistically greedy that they don't realize what part of "other peoples money" was in fact "the people's money" to begin with.
#20
The 9 Step Process Bankers Use to Force Global Slavery Upon Humanity
Quote from the following article: "Mussolini or Pinochet could not have asked for better cooperation and greater obedience from state police and government surveillance agencies than the bankers received."
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-08/9-step-process-bankers-u...
And it's not just the Banksters...it's all the rage in the corporate world as well.
#21
Your right about 30 years ago we had to start competing in a world market, including labour so when unions held companies hostage for huge pay increases they took off to Japan, when things became to expensive in Japan it was Tiawan, and now China, looks like India next. Thats how the world works whether we like it or not.
I am not sure how, as mentioned earlier, Bill Gates stole your money. that makes no sense to me at all. I know I am not happy when I see a guy like Al Gore who made $100,000,000.00 working for the Government or some actor making $20,000,000.00 a film it doesn't seem fair but good on them I guess. What they make is none of my business.
Besides Palin, my Mom taught me not to steal. I was taught to work hard and earn it.
#22
Bypass the lousy Republicans in the House and get it done President Obama.
#23
...once again what in the H E double toothpicks does the rape of medicare and social security have to do with getting us out of the hole they dug us into? It's just stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupider yet? That pathetic law recenetly passed they call the "American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012"? hu wha? What a joke, seriously!!! It'll still take a million years to get us out of debt. We need some hardliners with spines down in Washington to run the obstructionist out of town and re-write the code so that every bottom line taxable dollar is taxed "EQUALLY, EQUALLY, EQUALLY"!!!!!. Then we would not have this problem. Cap Gain TAX bump to 20% but only for those in the 39.6% tax bracket? Laughable, truly!!! What about all the blue chip hobby traders that even with a w-2 and a bit of cap gain. Sure dude pays a higher rate on his w-2 but doesn't have to pay jack on his cap gain? And don't give me the jive about how gambling in the market deserves some sort of incentive for supposedly keeping the economy moving!!! Just check out the WSJ today and the article about how india is trying to move to a sell it here make it her societal model!!!! Think about it, India? That use to be us!!! How about that same old rant of mine about the taxable 100k only paying $2,800 in tax while Joe the trucker and his cute wife the waitress putting 5 kids through Berkely on 84k of taxable income having to pay $13,000 in taxes? This my fellow ranting bloggers and trolls is whats wrong with America!!! The working class w-2s and even the middle class w-2s still pay the bulk of the bill and to this day and 5 years into tax complinace i have yet to see them get a good deal!!!! I want to cash out 1/3 of my IRA to pay off my mortage with out tax or penalty!!!! that would make me a believer again!!!lolThe state of affairs is short of insane!!!ARGH!!!
#24
The President of the United States has the power to raise the debt limit without action by Congress. He is responsible for protecting America from her enemies at home or abroad. If Congress fails to pay its debts then the President must step in to be an adult. The Republicans are in a death spiral. They cannot get over the fact that the American public does not buy their story.
#25
Quote Kend: "..so when unions held companies hostage for huge pay increases they took off to Japan.."
It was the corporations that began holding all of it's workers, and the lives of the worker's families, hostage with reduced wages, increased workloads, and reduced benefits. That's why there were, and are, unions to fight the corporations that do this in the first place.
Greed of the corporations came first. If corporations had been honest and fair... unions would never have had the attraction of the workers who were only fighting for survival...and perhaps the workers, and their families, took the psychological bait of being psyched by advertizing into buy things they were made to want. Then corporations used the allure of "get it now..pay later" with all of their psychological tricks to entrap people in debt.
#26
is it really stealing if i am asking it to all be taxed equally? How do you think rich people get rich? Certainly not by scraping bubble gum off of sidewalks for a living or hustling grocery carts at Wal-Mart. All one need have is a bit of capital (something i've never had much of but certainly pissed away trying to play the game) and properly maintained over 20 years can in fact reap a sizable return the tragedy however is the tax code. that fat cat over there? he plays the market and knows the game, gets to have that thing called capital loss carry over for when ever he loses and uses it to offset other gains and son on in conjunction to other holes in the code. But Joe the trucker and his stripper wife? if their 401k tanks? they are screwed. Just recall the recent past market heist!!!wink,wink. People from minimum wage trying to save for retirement to retirees took a monster shaft and yet? the top one percaent as well as many of our congress folk all have increased their personal wealth sizablly by comparison and i bet as sure as Bob's your uncle very few of them pay much in income tax by comparison!!! Just syaing, you know?
#27
financial advice of the day? When my house had an escalted appreciation i said to the wife. "honey lets take 150k of this EQ line and instead of buying a car, a boat or doing a remodel, lets just put it aside for the kids college. Sure it might not earn quite the interest payment or maybe it will but it'll be in the bank down the road when we need it. i don't trust something about whats going on." Back in the day i was just a lowly cement mixer driver at the hieght of the home ATM cashing out. My wife didn't go for it. i had to respect her so here i am 7 years later now likely to pay 7% on student loans and a home that lost 225k of equity. A few weeks back on an investment show i listen to the cat say, "Got 50-100% equity in your home? Cash it out now! Even with the economy recovering you are a fool to sit on cash when you can have cash and make it work for you." The cat went on to list a number of investment option from just throwing in a CD and keeping it for rainy day money even if you are paying 2-3%. His sentiment was you may just lose your ass in the future on the house if this thing goes double dip...any way you get the idea.Hind sight is 20/20! Good luck to any of those with a prayer!!!
#28
I'd like to know what Social Security has to do with the debt ceiling. Last I heard there was something like a 2.7 Trillion dollar surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund. Someone please explain to me why the money I have posted to my account over the past 50 years won't be doled out to me, per contract, on a monthly basis regardless of what the House idiots do.
#29
OK, here's the deal for the "cut spending hawks". Let's say your employer comes under pressure to cut costs from his investors. So he comes to you and says "you have to take a pay cut". Ok, what are you going to do? Eat less or not send your kids to college or ride a bicycle to work instead of a car? Or will you go and try to get more money by getting a second job? How far can you cut and what do you cut?
since Reagan and Thatcher's New Economic Order, the philosophy has changed from "Spend and prosper" to "Cut costs and prosper". Under the first scenario, everyone benefits. Under the second, only those at the top of the food chain benefit. That's why there is so much income disparity and why the 1% have made such monumental gains while the rest of us have gone backwards. The 1% will fight tooth and nail to prevent governments from ever taking us back to the "Spend and prosper" days for obvious reasons.
Working people (the REAL makers) who espouse the corporate "Cut and prosper) ideology are deluded, at best. By parroting the mantra they become part of the problem.
#30
Quote Kend: "I am not sure how, as mentioned earlier, Bill Gates stole your money. that makes no sense to me at all."
I'm not sure what you are talking about here...I couldn't find the reference you say I made to Bill Gates. But in a sense...he, and so many others, have stolen our money. We may have bought his products...perhaps because we were psyched into thinking that his products was worth buying. And whether we now think we were wise in those decisions is a matter of opinion. But in a sense...just by using his "business saavy", perhaps, cornering the world market in operating system software and related software by using advertizing designed to get people to buy...he was relieving people of their money and filling his coffers. Being "business saavy" could be interpreted in many ways. But as the old saying goes..."All's fair in business and war". And people who actually believe that, most likely believe that cheating people out of their money in any way they can is fair.
What about people who are into property management, for example, who think that if they invest in property and rent it out that they are hard working people who deserve all they get. That may, or may not, be true...it really depends on whether they are charging more rent than is fair. If one is able to get away with charging a lot of money on rent and making lots of money..perhaps he is charging too much for rent and therefore cheating the renters.
If people take their money and plunk it down on Microsoft stock and Microsoft stock shoots up, and they sell making lots of money. Are they not taking the money from other people who lost? It really isn't much different than plunking your money down on a roulette wheel in Vegas or Atlantic City. If you win, someone else loses.
If you, Kend, really did "earn" all your money through "hard work" and none of it by taking unfair advantage of people, then good for you. But then, why the heck would you argue in favor of those who would? Are you expecting to be "one of them" someday?
The problem with a lot of these top economic bandits is that they believe they have done nothing wrong and they worked hard to get there and that they deserve all they have managed to get....no matter how they did it.
#31
Freedom is what this whole argument is all about. And just to make sure everyone understands our many freedoms, let's list them:
1. The freedom to not be taxed if you are rich.
2. The freedom to pay more and more taxes if you are not rich.
3. The freedom to start wars if you are rich.
4. The freedom to fight in those wars if you are not rich.
5. The freedom to pollute if you are rich.
6. The freedom to have that pollution in your air, water, food, house, and consumer goods if you are not rich.
7. The freedom to have the the most nastiest sociopathic politicians (republicans) represent you if you are rich.
8. The freedom to have the most wimpy, spineless excuses for politicians (democrats) represent you if you are not rich.
9. The freedom to command our government and the media to lie for you if you are rich.
10. The freedom to try to find at least a few sources of honest news if you are not rich.
11. The freedom to get trillions of dollars in bailouts if you are rich.
12. The freedom to get stuck with the bill for the bailout if you are not rich.
13. The freedom to have the best medical care in the world if you are rich.
14. The freedom to have your house go into foreclosure to pay your medical bills if you are not rich.
15. The freedom to claw, back-stab, cheat, lie, steal, and defraud your way to great wealth if you have what it takes to be free to be rich.
16. The freedom to be clawed, back-stabbed, cheated, lied to, stolen from, and defrauded if you just don't have what it takes to be rich.
So: rich people have eight freedoms, and people who are not rich have eight freedoms, too. Sounds like freedom to me!
#32
Dowdotica: "Joe the trucker and his cute wife the waitress"
then: "Joe the trucker and his stripper wife" ...are they the same? Did the waitress have to turn to stripping just to make ends meet? Just kidding!
Anyway, yeah, man, I hear you! Those talking heads on TV are just trying to psyche people out of what little money they may have left..they'd like nothing better than to get their hands on your money (which would be the last time you ever see it again).
59-1/2 years old is the age for cashing out of 401k without penalties but I understand that there are exceptions and it is possible, under certain conditions, to cash out earlier. You've probably already looked into this. Good luck!
#33
David Abbot...Funny, if it weren't so true...
#34
As you have read from my comments made on this Blog in the past, I am not afraid to say what I am thinking. But, after reading the comments from Kend, Global, jphol and others with the same mind set I will not rebut or make any comments since I cannot address these individuals in a civil manner today. This is my short coming; I will not even make a sarcastic response to the comments posted on today’s Blog. I will say that it is apparent that Obama is very much like his counterparts in the Republican Party. He like Romney conveniently lies when it suits his purpose and I hold this man responsible for what is evidently coming down the proverbial trail that lies ahead for this country. The main emotions I am feeling are disgust and abject sadness when considering what the Republicans would do to our country in defense of the wealthiest in our nation. In all sincerity, I truly believe our nation is headed towards a violent and bloody future, maybe not tomorrow but soon. And as a father and soon to be grandfather, the scenario I see unwinding in this country is sad. And, it will not matter how many weapons the citizens of this country own. They will be no match for those who will try to abolish democracy for the masses and install a government of the wealthy, for the wealthy and by the wealthy. Just look what they have been allowed to do in the 20th century and the beginning of this century. How does it feel to be sold out by your own President and the goons that run Washington for the Wealthy Americans that hide in the shadows? Anger has turned to sadness. I am not a defeatist, I am a realist.
#35
Quote Old Blue: "I'd like to know what Social Security has to do with the debt ceiling. Last I heard there was something like a 2.7 Trillion dollar surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund."
Me too! It seems to me that someone is trying to rob us blind. And the main stream news media, all owned by the ultra-rich (Big Brother), keeps repeating the same old lies and uses doublespeak to confuse people.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
--George Orwell
Social Security and Medicare are part of the debt.
Social Security and Medicare are Welfare Programs.
Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting our country.
Save Social Security and Medicare by placing them both on Black 13 on the roulette wheel of Casino Capitalism.
--the real Big Brother of Amerika
And they never talk about how DOD spending and their wasteful wars are one of the biggest problems bankrupting our country. It's hands off of the Pentagon.
#36
I hear ya, Ken Ware! And I certainly agree. It is very sad, indeed. Some of us had so much hope in Obama...Now, I think, most people are coming to realize that Obama is really Obamney...Romney in disguise. Look at the people he is appointing John Brennan (Dr. Drone), Obamney's assassination Czar, to head the CIA.
" U.S. drones have killed 176 children in Pakistan alone."
"And as Glenn Greenwald pointed out shortly after Obama won the Presidency the first time,
Brennan “was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity.”
John Brennan is a liar, and he’s a dangerous man. And now he has only more power to be dangerous."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/08-1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/john-brennan-dishone...
If anyone will turn our refrigerators into spying sentinels Dr. Drone will.
#37
Quote TheGuardian: "the torture issue" won't cause any problems for Brennan, as it did in 2008, because Obama has buried that issue with his "Look Forward, not Backward" decrees; because most people who claimed concern over such issues back in 2008 have resigned themselves to Obama's posture in this area; and because, with very rare exception, there are no more serious campaigns mounted against Obama's decisions except from the American Right. ""..one of the most significant aspects of the Obama presidency: his conversion of what were once highly contentious right-wing policies into harmonious dogma of the DC bipartisan consensus."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/john-brennan-dishone...
The second paragraph of the quote: That's what Obama was for in the very beginning.."conversion of once highly contentious right-wing policies into harmonious dogma of the DC bipartisan consensus." Obama was the false hope that they sold to Americans, after the fiasco of the Bush2 administration. I think they knew that the people were ready to revolt back then but they used the smoke and mirrors candidate Obama to let out a little steam from the really ticked off people. The people were sold false hope for "change we can believe in" which did the trick to calm the people down, temporarily...then again...in 2012...the people swallowed the bait once again. Now we're stuck with another 4 years of Bush2 policies as implemented by Obamney.
It is really unfortunate that it may come to pass but as Chris Hedges says..."the only thing we have left are acts of civil disobedience".
#38
My wife and I got back from our honeymoon thirty years ago and had 60 dollars to our names. I worked on the oil rigs in the cold cold north saved up bought a house well all my freinds bought boats and other toys. I still have never personally bought a new car. I did something young people don't seem to do anymore I lived within my means and saved and invested instead of blowing my families money on crap. I have never taken advantage of anyone EVER but have been taken advantage of many times. I would make you sick to the stomach telling stories about the $&@?ing cramp I have to clean up.
My wife and I have worked hard for everything we have with no help from anyone and we are very prouit of it.
When Obama says we didn't build those roads just for the record I worked on road construction as well.
#39
Ken, I too am speechless. My emotions are in so much turmoil after reading the comments you have noted I can feel the top of my head exploding! It is hardly enough to say I know exactly how you feel. However, don't despair too much.
I promise you I have a plan to deal with these arrogant and greedy... 'people'. Unfortunately, I have to unwind before I announce it. Aggressive and undisciplined responses will do none of us any good at this point. They deserve so much more than that!
Palindromedary, thank you for keeping up the slack while I briefly read your responses at work. It did my heart good to know that somewhere out there is an intelligent, sensitive, real human being! You are spot on and I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you very much! Right now we are all in dept to you!
I will rejoin the cause in a few after I swallow my grief , disappointment and sorrow with Ken and rebound from the initial shock.
DAnneMarc
#40
I don't care anything about the scare tactics in your "nightmare" scenario, Thom. I think this is all political theater again, and it will be addressed at the last moment like they usually do things.
BUT there are some questions I do care about. This are a sampling of them:
Do you think it might also be political suicide for the Republicans to go this route of keeping the rest of us hostage in an attempt to ram their ideology down everyone else's throat?
Do you think that the whole scenario might get the American public angry enough to start a revolution? (To stop quietly going along and take drastic steps in opposition to it.)
Do you think that by destroying the economy that is funding and keeping alive the wars that are fought on behalf of the same billionaires who are funding this charade that the American Empire might go the way of the Roman Empire and fall with a mighty crash? Do you think that the end of the American Empire might be worth some pain? Do you think it would be worth this much pain?
Do you think that prolonging the Republicans' assault on us over decades a nip and tuck at a time is better than letting the rest of us frogs be forced into the boiling water all at once? Is there any sign that they with either stop or be changed that you see that I do not?
Do you think that maintaining the charade that is the current economy is a lesser nightmare than crashing it and building up something new?
While I remain unclear as to what the answers to these questions are and in that lack of clarity project into that blankness the worst, my opinion remains what it has been. I think that crashing the world economy not only shoots the rest of us (like these same folks are already doing in countless ways), it also shoots themselves in the foot. And I am masochistic enough to take the pain they want to dish out if they are going to come down with me.
I am inclined to egg the Republicans on in their psychotic desire to shoot themselves in the foot.
#41
Kend: so why is it that you always sound so supportive of people like the ruling elite who have not been so hard working as yourself? Most of us are hard workers and have done the same as you...saved by not buying all those "toys". I have never even bought a big screen HD TV. I don't buy a new car every few years. I don't even own an i-phone (sorry all you NSA and CIA spies out there..you get enough information about me through this blog...and that drone spy-der crawling it's web..on the web and the one crawling up and down from my surveillance cameras just outside my house ;-\ )..I hate cell phones and spy-ders. And speaking of spy drones...have you ever heard of the fly that came in from the cold? ;-}
I have known people that worked in the Rub' al Khali in Saudi Arabia where the temperature is not uncommon to be as high as 133 degrees F....with average temps of about 117 deg F. I drove through edge of the Rub' al Khali and thought I was inside an oven. Late June to late September in Dhahran where I worked was usually above 100 deg F.
I was lucky that I didn't have to work on those rigs (or any rig anywhere)..I understand it is pretty hard work. Those guys can really let off steam...one got drunk on an Aramco flight out of Saudi Arabia (via Bahrain--where they served alcohol) and he was making quite a rukkus.
I can understand that there are some who don't work not because they can't but because they don't want to because they think they can game the system. Freeloaders! I understand that and I don't like them either. But, I believe that the biggest freeloaders are the ones who are in positions that enable them to steal...call them white collar criminals...banksters...whatever. They and their corporations are the biggest welfare queens costing the rest of us a great deal more than the original welfare queens drawing multiple welfare checks...and I think it was Reagan who coined the phrase welfare queens.
But there are a majority of hard working people who have busted their a$$e$ just trying to feed their families who are now being threatened with extinction. Many people will die from various causes related to lack of money..food, shelter, and healthcare. And these top greedsters, that have gamed the system, now with the largest portion of the economic pie will deny their fellow Americans even a taste of it. Their attitude is let them all suffer and die. I am not yet one of the unfortunate ones...but anything can happen any second that can change all of that. We live in very perilous times.
#42
Charles G. Koch says: "The UNFUNDED liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid already exceed $106 TRILLION, urgent reform is needed." This comment comes from the Koch Industries website. Thought I'd mention it just in case anyone is wondering where the mandate for significant cuts to nonprofit social insurance programs is coming from. No sense in retiring in poverty, just work until you die....at whatever wage the God Almighty Job Creator decides to toss your way in old age, maybe get shifted to the lighter widgets assembly line.
Of course the Teabillionaire Party in the House will do anything for their Big Daddies even if it means pissing off the majority of Americans dead set against these significant cuts. The question remains, how many of this same majority will vote for these Teabillionaire Reps. again in two years? Another question, why go after well run and well funded, NON PROFIT, programs not even responsible for the deficit, why not focus on job creation and pay your fair share tax revenue collection?
This same group of Teabillionaires armed with the Ryan/Romney budget plan actually were looking for an increase to military spending. Got to make up for the loss of things like twenty billion dollars in shrink wrapped cash on pallets in Iraq, no problem, it's part of the, FOR PROFIT, Military Industrial Complex. These guys don't really care about out of control spending, it only becomes a problem when the spending creates things like jobs, and makes the Democrats look like they're doing what we elected them to do.
#43
DAnneMarc: Thank you! But, I sure hope your "plan to deal with these arrogant and greedy...'people' " isn't some one man or woman crusade that will get you hurt. Now if you have an army.....one with any chance of winning...??? well, good luck at any rate.
#44
Denisepf: But, alas, unfortunately, it is not just the Republicans...the Democrats are part of the smoke and mirrors ruse that the ruling elite are playing against us. No matter how many Democrats fill the Congress or the Presidency...many are actually working for the ruling elite. They would have a harder time trying to blame the Republicans (who are very deserving of most of the blame) for everything in trying to explain to us why they were still voting and making laws that made the rich richer and the rest of us digging our graves.
The outcome might be that they no longer have a "steam release valve" to take the pressure off from the potential massive rebellion that they fear so much. But then that was what Barack Bushobamney was there for all along. All this time they have been playing us all for duped idiots believing that all we had to do was vote, write or phone our congress people...keep believing that we had a system that worked for us..the people...that we had a real democracy. Invest your hard earned life's savings for the long term...while sneaky bastards went in and sold us short. While most of us were locked in to long term..these nasties went in and sold at the peak values causing the life's savings of many retirement accounts to plummet.
But buying into the idea that our system was honest and fair and worked for us as long as we all worked hard and saved was the folly most of us got suckered into. Rich white men have always owned and controlled the population. Even from before my great, great, great (great?) relative George Washington. No, I have not inherited anything that I know of.
It took creating the myths and beliefs to keep us all from really challenging the status quo. They propagandized us in school...got us to say the pledge of allegiance...taught us about the perpetual wars in Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia ;-} And that we should believe in God and Big Brother. Attend church, the polls, and watch Disney's "Duck and Cover" film to show our gullibility, patriotism and rabid anti-communism.
But there was one thing they didn't count on...a book by Howard Zinn..the Holy Book called "A People's History of the United States". Now things will never be the same..especially since Barack Bushobomney failed us the second time...we, who have read the book, will never see our country again through the rose color glasses and blinders that the ministry of propaganda foisted upon us all these years. We have nothing to lose but our chains!
Just as Japan's schools avoided the subject of the Nanking Massacre and Operation Golden Lily, the United States of Amerika hid many "embarrassing" things about our country, like the cold war being funded, largely, by the Chinese...from the recovered Golden Lily treasures the US took from the Philippines after WW2. Our saviors, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, have also helped a great deal in bringing to light US atrocities and secrets they didn't want us to know about.
#45
I guess at the end of the day I would rather my money go to my granddaughters collage fund then planed parenthood Or some wastefull Government study. As a Canadian trust me I pay my fair share. But when I do well financially I and only I should decide want should be done with my money. (after taxes of course) After all it is mine. I look at it like this. If I have a terrible green thumb and couldn't grow a flower if my life depended on it. does it mean I should be able to take my neighbours flowers cause they have more than me? My fair share. Come learn how to grow them your self.
#46
Quote 2950-10k: "...twenty billion dollars in shrink wrapped cash on pallets in Iraq..
And then there was a reported $60 Billion that went missing in Iraq...some of that probably the $20 billion you speak of.
And then there was the $2.3 Trillion (with a T) that Rumsfeld announced to the world, on the very day prior to 9/11...on 9/10, that went missing as well. Not to mention all of the illegal bonds stored in the WTC towers that were to come due on the very day after 9/11...on 9/12. And not to mention all of the ghost trading done on 9/11.
Someone's raking in some big bucks here. And it most likely is not the TeaBillies (Tea Party + Hill Billies who are being manipulated by Billionaires). Some of the billionaires (connected with the MIC) are most likely the new owners of all that cash. They must have run out of all that old Golden Lily treasure and are now pilfering us for their war crimes.
During the Reagan years, when Congress wouldn't approve supporting the Contras, our CIA helped smuggle in lots of heroine and cocaine into the US hooking our school kids. Now, they just make announcements that large sums of money are missing and unaccounted.
#47
Kend: Mostly I agree with you here. But, unfortunately, it is not just the tax man that has stolen the flowers...a lot of them have been stolen in the night by arrogant rich next door neighbors who have learned the secrets of moving stealthily in the night. Like I said...the biggest Welfare Queens are not the ones sitting in some slum. The Corporate/Bankster/Wall Street Welfare system steals many $trillions...and that is largely why we are about $20trillion in debt..missing Pentagon trillions...even accountable trillions to the MIC..wasteful wars...not because people are claiming what is owed to them in Social Security or even by those original Welfare Queens sitting in the slums.
#48
Obama and the Democrats will do what they've always intended to do: use the Republican threat to excuse the savaging of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, also probably food stamps and any number of other programs. Wake up, people: it's genocide by neglect, the only way -- now that death camps are no longer fashionable -- the capitalists can be rid of all of us who are no longer exploitable for profit: we who are elderly, disabled or merely chronically poor.
#49
Thom says, "The Treasury Dept. has to pay for things already spent by Congress." Maybe it's time for Cantor and his deficit hawk pals to come clean on disclosure of much of this deficit spending..... can't get more REPUBLICAN than CAPITALISTS WARS which are always financed by deficit spending.....you bet, jobs for some of his Virginians, seemingly the only kind guys like Cantor seem to be in favor of.
"Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a WAR DEBT: the United States continues to spend more on its military than do all other nations combined, and military expenditures are not only the basis of the governments industrial policy; they also take up such a huge proportion of the budget that by many estimations, were it not for them, the United States WOULD RUN NOT A DEFICIT AT ALL." quote from a book by David Graeber
DEBT.... The First 5000 Years.
Without the slightest mention of the above truth, Corp. Media will continue to go right on blaming the so called entitlements for the deficit, and many will believe it!
#50
Don't worry, the war between China and the US over the oil and diamonds in Africa*..and between Japan and China over the disputed islands...or Britain over another battle for the Faulklands will end up costing us all so much that it could be the straw that broke the empire's back...one hump or two...dromedary?..one hump please
*Little reported is that the US is sending US troops to 35 different African countries ostensibly to fight Al Qaida but is it Al Qaida or China we are preparing to do battle with over the oil and diamonds? I heard this on the Max Keiser show on RT.
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From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"If you wonder why and when giant corporations got the power to reign supreme over us, here’s the story."
Why raise the debt limit? Let's eliminate our deficit and debt 'problems' instead. Consider the following:
Increasing the top ordinary income tax rate by only 3.5% to 39.5% on marginal income over 250K ( Obama's original proposal ) would generate about $70 billion a year; but letting it rise from there to 70% over 400K ( the pre-Reagan top marginal rate ) would generate about $700 billion a year. And applying this 70% marginal rate to any combination of all forms of income over 400K ( including stock grants, options, dividends and capital gains ) would generate hundreds of billions a year more. The result would be a budget surplus.
And since the richest 1% have accumulated a total net worth of about 20 trillion dollars ( most of it just wealth 'redistributed' upward since 1980 because Reagan's flatter, 'fairer' tax rates did not increase the inflation adjusted rate of GDP growth ), an effective ( loophole free ) top estate tax rate of 90% on marginal wealth over 50 million dollars ( the pre-Reagan rate was 77% over 10 million ) would generate enough revenue within a generation to eliminate our national debt.
And the families of the richest 1%, with 4 trillion left, would still be the richest 1%.