[Plantagenet]

We are paying bills we already owe.

Nefarious is right.

When a bill is paid using borrowed money, it just creates a new bill. Nothing has really been paid off----you've just shifted the debt to a new creditor. Thanks to Obama and the huge growth in the deficit we've seen over the last five years , the US now must pay about 250 BILLION dollars each year in interest on the debt. That money would be much be better spent on infrastructure. intercity train service, high speed internet networks, college scholarships, NASA, NSF etc.

Obama adding another 380 billion to our debt just today just makes it worse, and the obama administration projects they'll run the debt up to over 20 TRILLION before they leave office after the 2016 elections.

[Lore]

When you have to borrow money to pay your bills, your bills are to high.
When you have to borrow money to pay back other borrowed money you're in deep sh*t

People keep forgetting, this isn't home or even corporate finance. We're talking about the government, they print the money. There is no limit, you are the realm. Government is only bowering against itself. Relative to all other currencies the US is still, for now, the most valued. We have more to worry about when we pull these kinds of stunts in keeping our good faith and credit. No one likes or trusts a deadbeat.

[Lore]

Obama adding another 380 billion to our debt just today just makes it worse, and the obama administration projects they'll run the debt up to over 20 TRILLION before they leave office after the 2016 elections.

Obama has an obligation by law to pay the bills due. If he didn't we would be back in default. This obviously didn't worry Mitch McConnell too much either since he managed to tack on a 2.9B budget deal earmark for his Kentucky project.

[ralfy]

Major increase in total debts from 1981 onward, as shown in the first chart featured here:

http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/ ... s-of-debt/

Plus, what Preston shared, and

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of ... its-2010-6

The drivers are a reserve currency economy, an expensive military that is used to keep the petro-dollar propped up, consumer spending, a Fed that is controlled by commercial banks, and financial speculation across the board coupled with various entitlements, leading to banks exposed to hundreds of trillions in unregulated derivatives and hundreds of trillions in future liabilities.

Finally,

"The myth of the money multiplier"

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/art ... multiplier

[Nefarious]

People keep forgetting, this isn't home or even corporate finance. We're talking about the government, they print the money. There is no limit, you are the realm.

Weimar Germany might disagree with that.
Money printing has been tried and tried again and has always failed. Even now the Fed couldn't reduce it's printing from 85 billion to 75 billion a month. There will be consequences to the money printing.

[Lore]

People keep forgetting, this isn't home or even corporate finance. We're talking about the government, they print the money. There is no limit, you are the realm.

Weimar Germany might disagree with that.
Money printing has been tried and tried again and has always failed. Even now the Fed couldn't reduce it's printing from 85 billion to 75 billion a month. There will be consequences to the money printing.

What fails is real faith in any country. Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic was a result of overextending itself in WWI by dropping the gold standard and borrowing the money. We've been off the gold standard for sometime. The only thing we have to back up our fiat currency is our GDP, military might, technologies, resources and liquid markets, among others. We can print money all day and invest it in those things as long as they keep us ahead of the next guy. We devalue our worth mightily by not paying our bills.

I'm not saying that printing too much money isn't dangerous. Just that you can't borrow against thin air.

[AgentR11]

Weimar Germany might disagree with that.

I've been thinking about this comparison for a long time... while it is a great visual and emotional story; it is an invalid comparison.

1.) Weimar printing was forced by a requirement to transfer large sums to foreign nations without receiving material of value in exchange. Its why we no longer seek punitive payments from defeated countries, but rather spend significant sums to rebuild them.

2.) The value of internal US real wealth (land, resources, materially productive assets) is vast on a scale that dwarfs the Weimar Republic. As much as we overconsume oil, it can not be left out of the monetization puzzle that the US remains one of the worlds largest producers of oil. Germany... not so much.

Basically, these two features explain why printing in Germany at the time led to a catastrophic devaluation, and why our version, even being larger in absolute magnitude, doesn't seem to have any abrupt impact.

As I've noted before, Japanese have no difficulty paying 500 yen for a burger. I see no reason why we should be concerned about a future where the burger is denominated as "500" instead of "5.00". (would suck to be holding long term treasuries though if things go oops.)

[Pops]

If you're going to post a chart at least post one that is current.



Ezra Klein said the TEA's problem is that they've been so successful bringing down the debt that they now don't know what to do with themselves. Bush tax cuts and Bush wars and Bush recession put us in the hole and the TEAs in their do-nothing, sequester fashion (along with O's piddly rejection of some of the cuts and eventual - I hope- ending of the wars) have reduced the deficit down to around 2% in the near term according to the OMB.

Obviously deficits aren't the point for the TEAs, the point is taxes. The Koch Boys think they pay too much. They have the money to keep that idea on the front burner that we have a huge spending problem in order to cut the size of government and their rates. They could care less about what the government provides, they are a country unto themselves. The fact is, the deficit is coming down faster than at any time since WWII.

Next time someone complains about how high their taxes are, you can remind them that our effective rate - 18.7% + SS, is the highest in the world . . except for the 55 countries who pay more.

.

[Pops]

In fact I'll bet they'll be campaigning on tax cuts next election because the deficit is so low, lol

[Plantagenet]

This time its clearly the Ds who are going to shut dow the government

government-shutdown-2018

I can't wait to see how the MSM spins this so the Ds don't get blamed.

Cheers!

[Tanada]

What If, the government shut down and nobody cared?

The reality is all essential services get priority in any and every shut down.

As a Libertarian so far as I am concerned if a service is not essential the government shouldn't be doing it anyway.

I see this as a win-win, and I expect that unlike President Obama the current occupant will not use this as a stunt to lock people out of federal property. I could be wrong, but then again there are not a lot of winter camping trips so even if Yellowstone and other park areas are off limits the impact will be fairly small.

[Outcast_Searcher]

What If, the government shut down and nobody cared?

The reality is all essential services get priority in any and every shut down.

As a Libertarian so far as I am concerned if a service is not essential the government shouldn't be doing it anyway.

Yup. The reality is shutdowns are more political theatre than real pain, or people would have a FAR nastier reaction come the next election.

Last I read, we've already had 18 of these in the past 42 years. And wailing and each side blaming the other were the main impacts, since the government workers get paid (whether they report to work or not) once the shutdown is over. (Craven cowards in the beltway never stop spending if it might cost votes).

Now, if it went on long enough that truly core services were shut down, that might be another story.

I just don't see that happening, as long as they can print money with impunity, and they want to get re-elected -- which claims of doom or not, isn't changing any time soon.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The best side effect from this, IMO, would be if we got a decent stock market dip. Reminding people that the market doesn't only go up pretty much every week would be good.

Of course, doomers would call it doom, but i think a nice 5% to 15% wake-up correction would be good for the markets longer term, and likely help incent the Beltway clown car to work together and compromise FOR A CHANGE and come to some agreement.

The whole debt ceiling is absurd grandstanding anyway. The problem is the endless authorization of over-spending vs. taxation to buy votes. If they truly want a budget surplus over time, it's the spending and taxing levels, NOT some arbitrary "debt ceiling" that matters.

[Tanada]

NBC News does a masterful job of avoiding the simple fact that Senate Democrats are behind the shut down this time around. When it was possible to blame any Republican on any level they would trumpet that aspect a dozen times in a story this length.

The Statue of Liberty is not accepting huddled masses at this time, but the beleaguered U.S. Post Office is still processing packages and delivering mail after lawmakers failed to pass a spending bill on Friday, sending the federal government into shutdown limbo.

After the federal spending authority expired at midnight Saturday, federal workers deemed "non-essential" were furloughed, a temporary layoff. “Essential” federal workers are still on the job. Airports, national mail service, national security and law enforcement operations, among others, are still operating.

Most federal buildings are closed, but some are still operating with non-furloughed employees, they’re just not open to the public.

But there are some noticeable differences between this shutdown and the last shutdown, which took place in 2013.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said this shutdown will be different because agencies will be encouraged to use available funds to keep parts of the government operating. He said the most recent shutdown, in 2013 during the Obama administration, was "weaponized" to achieve maximum disruption.

"We're not going to weaponize it," he told reporters at a briefing on Friday.

This time, for instance, Americans will still be able to visit the country's national parks and landmarks. During the 2013 shutdown, the Department of Interior concluded that keeping parks open was not essential. The Trump administration is taking a different stance.

There is no federal law that automatically determines what stays and what goes during a shutdown. In general, operations of the government cease because the money runs out, but there are exceptions.

FBI agents, Transportation Security Administration screeners at the nation's airports and the Coast Guard are still on the job. Meat and poultry inspectors, air traffic controllers and members of Congress, excluding their staffs, are also still working — and likely many are scrambling to find a solution to funding the government.

Most federal employees, which includes staff at the Centers for Disease Control, who are dealing with the flu epidemic, and staff at the Internal Revenue Service, who are dealing with the new tax law and in the beginning stages of processing tax returns, remain on the job. So do rangers at national parks.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are also on the job.

The Smithsonian Institution’s museums, the National Zoo, Veteran Affairs hospitals, federal courts and the U.S. Postal Service are open.

Social security checks, Supplemental Security Income, unemployment pay, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, food stamps and medicaid benefits will still be received by recipients because they're not paid from annual appropriations by Congress.

Federal prisons are still operating. Also, Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation, which is funded directly by Congress, not through the Department of Justice, will still be funded.

The National Park Service said in a statement that The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island are closed due to the shutdown.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a memo that would furlough 50 percent of its staff and cut back certain services, such as Indian Health Services and child welfare programs. It continues treating current patients, however.

The Department of Defense also issued guidance saying military and civilian personnel will continue normal duty but would not be paid. Military death benefits will not be dispersed.

The Department of Education said in a memo more that 90 percent of its total staff for the first week would be sent home, but federal financial aid workers would still work.

LINK

[Outcast_Searcher]

NBC News does a masterful job of avoiding the simple fact that Senate Democrats are behind the shut down this time around. When it was possible to blame any Republican on any level they would trumpet that aspect a dozen times in a story this length.

The Statue of Liberty is not accepting huddled masses at this time, but the beleaguered U.S. Post Office is still processing packages and delivering mail after lawmakers failed to pass a spending bill on Friday, sending the federal government into shutdown limbo.

After the federal spending authority expired at midnight Saturday, federal workers deemed "non-essential" were furloughed, a temporary layoff. “Essential” federal workers are still on the job. Airports, national mail service, national security and law enforcement operations, among others, are still operating.

Most federal buildings are closed, but some are still operating with non-furloughed employees, they’re just not open to the public.

But there are some noticeable differences between this shutdown and the last shutdown, which took place in 2013.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said this shutdown will be different because agencies will be encouraged to use available funds to keep parts of the government operating. He said the most recent shutdown, in 2013 during the Obama administration, was "weaponized" to achieve maximum disruption.

"We're not going to weaponize it," he told reporters at a briefing on Friday.

This time, for instance, Americans will still be able to visit the country's national parks and landmarks. During the 2013 shutdown, the Department of Interior concluded that keeping parks open was not essential. The Trump administration is taking a different stance.

There is no federal law that automatically determines what stays and what goes during a shutdown. In general, operations of the government cease because the money runs out, but there are exceptions.

FBI agents, Transportation Security Administration screeners at the nation's airports and the Coast Guard are still on the job. Meat and poultry inspectors, air traffic controllers and members of Congress, excluding their staffs, are also still working — and likely many are scrambling to find a solution to funding the government.

Most federal employees, which includes staff at the Centers for Disease Control, who are dealing with the flu epidemic, and staff at the Internal Revenue Service, who are dealing with the new tax law and in the beginning stages of processing tax returns, remain on the job. So do rangers at national parks.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are also on the job.

The Smithsonian Institution’s museums, the National Zoo, Veteran Affairs hospitals, federal courts and the U.S. Postal Service are open.

Social security checks, Supplemental Security Income, unemployment pay, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, food stamps and medicaid benefits will still be received by recipients because they're not paid from annual appropriations by Congress.

Federal prisons are still operating. Also, Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation, which is funded directly by Congress, not through the Department of Justice, will still be funded.

The National Park Service said in a statement that The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island are closed due to the shutdown.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a memo that would furlough 50 percent of its staff and cut back certain services, such as Indian Health Services and child welfare programs. It continues treating current patients, however.

The Department of Defense also issued guidance saying military and civilian personnel will continue normal duty but would not be paid. Military death benefits will not be dispersed.

The Department of Education said in a memo more that 90 percent of its total staff for the first week would be sent home, but federal financial aid workers would still work.

LINK

Fair enough. And I'm sure (without even checking) that right leaning sources like Fox News and the WSJ are blaming the dems.

Moderates like me are blaming BOTH sides, as according to what I read, 5 senators defected from both sides, and both sides need to work together to get the needed 60 votes, unless one side has a large senate majority.

And it's pretty clear that, as usual, each side blames the other. That's typically what happens when both sides can't compromise on any serious disagreement, IMO.

But hey, why worry. The federal budget mess is only currently costing us over $4 trillion annually (on the books). What could go wrong long term?

[jedrider]

I think Republicans invented the concept of government shutdown. They should be held responsible for their own creations IMO.

[Cog]

Bottom line is the Democrats care more for illegals than they do you. Let that sink in a bit.

[vtsnowedin]

I posted this on the fast crash thread but it is better posted here.

As to the shutdown an idea that has come up here is to amend the constitution to cut congressional salaries by one percent for each day the government is shut down. Also they should only be able to raise their salaries in years the budget is truly in balance and then only by the percentage of that surplus.

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[Subjectivist]

I posted this on the fast crash thread but it is better posted here.

As to the shutdown an idea that has come up here is to amend the constitution to cut congressional salaries by one percent for each day the government is shut down. Also they should only be able to raise their salaries in years the budget is truly in balance and then only by the percentage of that surplus.

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I could seriously support that plan!

[dissident]

Sounds rather fair. Why should politicians get paid for taking a de facto vacation beyond the one they are covered for (generously).