Re: Obama's world
Posted: Oct 26th, '16, 15:31
Wag the Dog.freeski wrote:Anyone else think the timing of the offensive against ISIS is politically motivated
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Wag the Dog.freeski wrote:Anyone else think the timing of the offensive against ISIS is politically motivated
nah, no way this vaunted administration would take a chance on tarnishing its stellar reputation for exemplary honesty....freeski wrote:Anyone else think the timing of the offensive against ISIS is politically motivated
yup, ideas so good they are mandatory...steamboat1 wrote:...
Obama is the only president to ever surpass the 80,000 mark of regulatory pages produced, achieving the feat four times.
President Obama’s Federal Register added 572 pages on Thursday (Nov. 17) alone!
Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute warns that Obama’s manufacturing of regulations is not over. With the amount of time left in the year, the current pace of rule passage could bring many thousands of more pages.
“No one knows what the future holds, but at a pace of well over 1,000 pages weekly, the Federal Register could easily top 90,000 pages this year. The simple algebra says that at the current pace we’ll add 11,190 pages over the next 44 days, to end 2016 at around 92,830 pages,” said CEI’s Wayne Crews.
“This is astonishing and should be of great concern, and intolerable, to policymakers.” Said Wayne Crews. “It is remarkable enough that the all-time record has been passed before Thanksgiving.”
Crews called on President-elect Donald Trump to make good on campaign promises and cut regulations.
“President-elect Donald Trump could take a page from President Reagan, who brought
OK, this is pretty nuts.
According to data released by the Treasury Department yesterday, the US national debt has soared by a whopping $294 billion since the start of the 2017 fiscal year, just 45 days ago.
That’s an annualized increase of 14%.
So if they keep up this pace, the national debt will increase by $2.4 trillion this fiscal year, surpassing $21 trillion by next September.
It’s hard to believe how rapidly the debt is growing; debt growth is far outpacing the growth of the US economy… and there’s no way to pretend that this is good news.
That doesn’t stop leading economists from trying.
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says “debt is good” because the US economy has grown so much over the last 200 years despite not having been debt-free since 1835.
This kind of logic is astonishing.
Aside from a few anomalies like World War II and the American Civil War, debt levels over most of early American history were low.
100 years ago in 1916, US debt was about $3.6 billion; as a percentage of GDP (i.e. the size of the US economy), that was about 7%.
Today’s debt of $19,867,119,032,053.28 is actually bigger than the entire US economy at over 106% of GDP.
hat are the good citizens of the United States receiving in exchange for taking on so much debt?
It’s not like the government bought up half of Mexico or colonized Mars.
No, instead they wasted $2 billion on the Obamacare website, most of which went to a company whose top executive just happens to be an old friend of Michelle Obama.
Today, the US government has to borrow money just to pay interest on the money it’s already borrowed. This is almost the textbook definition of bad debt…
In fact, the government now spends nearly all of its tax revenue just on mandatory entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, plus interest on the debt.
The real kicker is that Social Security and Medicare are massively underfunded and quickly running out of cash… so they’ll both require a major bailout (i.e. MORE debt).
Interest payments, meanwhile, total hundreds of billions of dollars each year even though interest rates are at record lows.
Today the government pays less than 2% interest on its debt.
Ten years ago in 2006, the average interest rate on US debt was over 5%.
Back then 5% was considered incredibly low compared to the higher interest rates of the 1980s and 1990s.
But today, 5% would bankrupt the US government. It’s pitiful.
So unless interest rates stay at these record lows forever (or perhaps go negative), the government’s interest payments are going to explode.
Debt… particularly bad debt… is an absolute killer.
Excess debt has been responsible for bringing down some of the largest companies in the world. It bankrupts individuals.
And excess debt has caused the decline of some of the largest superpowers in the history of the world.
There are a lot of people, led by their cheerleader Paul Krugman, who outright ignore this problem and pretend that the US government can continue expanding its debt forever without ever suffering a single consequence.
And I know there are a lot of people keeping their fingers crossed hoping that a new administration will steer the ship in the right direction.
Look, I’m all for hope and optimism.
But it’s important to stay rational. These problems aren’t going away.
And you won’t be worse off for having a Plan B that provides solid protection from the consequences of these obvious trends.
Do you have a Plan B?
more likely that the majority will continue to be whiney babies w masters degrees in basket weaving and 100k in debt they will default on...Mister Moose wrote:College students graduating the last 15 years, and especially the last 8 years, have experienced the effect of crushing tuition debt firsthand very early in their lives. The last 8 years they have graduated into a soft job market and have had to adjust their expectations considerably. Their ability to repay their college debt has absorbed a much higher percentage of their income, and resulted in pushing off their first purchase of a home, or even delaying moving out from their parents home. They may emerge as a fiscally responsible voting block that recognizes irresponsible debt and votes against deficit spending in future elections.
Hopefully they will also understand why the cost of college rose so high so fast.
It's absolutely crazy. I think a lot of millennials (me included, though I argue I am a Gen Xer) are children of baby boomers, many which didn't go to college, or went when tuition was much more reasonable. I don't recall ever having a discussion with my parents, or school guidance counselors, about personal finance/economics of it all. Personally, I remain surprised the public school system / common core does not include classes in personal finance. You essentially have kids going off to college with no real awareness of how their decision will impact the rest their life. Good luck if you choose a subject area with poor job prospects.Mister Moose wrote:College students graduating the last 15 years, and especially the last 8 years, have experienced the effect of crushing tuition debt firsthand very early in their lives. The last 8 years they have graduated into a soft job market and have had to adjust their expectations considerably. Their ability to repay their college debt has absorbed a much higher percentage of their income, and resulted in pushing off their first purchase of a home, or even delaying moving out from their parents home. They may emerge as a fiscally responsible voting block that recognizes irresponsible debt and votes against deficit spending in future elections.
Hopefully they will also understand why the cost of college rose so high so fast.
and that's why there WILL be a high incidence of default...easy gov loans w deferred interest/payment encourage a buy now worry later mentality...it's also allowed tuition to skyrocket...many special snowflakes have never had a legitimate worry in their lives and haven;t even remotely contemplated what it will take to repay those loans...as you said, when later comes ( and it will) you better have gotten an actual education worth the $$$ you are on the hook for, otherwise there's gonna be a lot of dark days and misery in your future...XtremeJibber2001 wrote:It's absolutely crazy. I think a lot of millennials (me included, though I argue I am a Gen Xer) are children of baby boomers, many which didn't go to college, or went when tuition was much more reasonable. I don't recall ever having a discussion with my parents, or school guidance counselors, about personal finance/economics of it all. Personally, I remain surprised the public school system / common core does not include classes in personal finance. You essentially have kids going off to college with no real awareness of how their decision will impact the rest their life. Good luck if you choose a subject area with poor job prospects.Mister Moose wrote:College students graduating the last 15 years, and especially the last 8 years, have experienced the effect of crushing tuition debt firsthand very early in their lives. The last 8 years they have graduated into a soft job market and have had to adjust their expectations considerably. Their ability to repay their college debt has absorbed a much higher percentage of their income, and resulted in pushing off their first purchase of a home, or even delaying moving out from their parents home. They may emerge as a fiscally responsible voting block that recognizes irresponsible debt and votes against deficit spending in future elections.
Hopefully they will also understand why the cost of college rose so high so fast.
Source: My $60k in college tuition amortized over 30 years.