- #141
ImaLooser
- 489
- 4
SixNein said:The federal reserve runs a risk of loosing it's Independence.
One of us, one of us, gooble gabba one of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBXyB7niEc0
SixNein said:The federal reserve runs a risk of loosing it's Independence.
The trouble is that deficit-reduction will not be a study of the economically ideal. It will be a study in political necessity. If the only way to protect the American economy against a massive dose of cuts is to make sure that what cuts do occur hit budget items with relatively high multipliers—and the government's notorious habit of squeezing "non-defence discretionary spending" until the pips squeak suggests this is a real possibility—then the resulting policy will be anything but tailored to minimise the damage to the American economy.
Astronuc said:In theory, I have about $250K in my SS account (from my and corporate contributions). I'd like to transfer it to my kids, since I won't need it.
russ_watters said:Yes they've been raiding the SS trust fund to fund general government functions, not the other way around.
I know I don't have an"account", although they apparently track (by SSN) what I've put in since my first job. I get an annual statement of accrual and what I would expect in a payment if I retire at 65, 66, 67, . . . .Locrian said:I think you're aware of this, but just in case someone else is not, there was never any attempt to create an "account" for you, and there has never been an attempt to fund social security. The trust fund is not an attempt to fund the program like a pension fund.
russ_watters said:Different "deficit". Yes, I'd like entitlement spending to be reigned-in, but the budget deficit is more immediate.
Astronuc said:I know I "account", although they apparently track (by SSN) what I've put in since my first job. I get an annual statement of accrual and what I would expect in a payment if I retire at 65, 66, 67, . . . .
I expect that by the time I reach 65, I will have put in about $350 K.
russ_watters said:1. "Deserve" is a completely irrelevant question. There are lots and lots of things in life that are an utter crapshoot. Yeah, it sucks that he died from cancer. A close friend of mine died from a rare form of cancer when he was in 2nd grade and he had the best available care. Definitely unlucky. My sister got and beat breast cancer last year at the relatively young age of 37. Was she lucky or unlucky? Neither of them "deserved" to get cancer, but that's life.
Sometimes (well -- ultimately, always) you die.
2. It was you who used 100 years ago as a baseline, so please don't switch back and forth. Any treatment beyond the virtually nothing that existed back then is extra. Not getting to take advantage of all of the extras is not a negative, it is just a lack of a positve. And no, that's not the same thing.
Try it this way: I have $20. I give that $20 to the person standing next to you. Did you lose $20 or did you just gain nothing? Again, this mindset that people have that they are entitled to everything possible just because it exists is dangerous.
Regarding the car, you're missing the point of the analogy. Yes, you can live without a car, but that's not the point. The point is that if you have a car, spending more money can result in more safety. The same exists for planes, not to mention stairs. If two people are in an accident -- and yes, both could have possibly found an alternative to driving -- and the rich one has a modern car with a dozen airbags while the poor one is driving a beat-up 20 year old car without modern safety features, the rich one may live while the poor one dies. Does the poor guy deserve to die? No. Does that mean the rich guy should have bought him a better car? IMO, no. Both as a matter of morality and practicality.
Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol said:“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
At the same time, you are trying to create a false dichotomy by saying "you can't live without it" with healthcare because implies that you can live with it. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't -- both live with it and live without it.
I don't know if you're purposely belittling the point by focusing just on cancer alone vs the downfall of Western civilization or if you just don't see it, but you are aware that we have a serious debt crisis, in part because of paying for things like cancer treatments (not to mention paying people to get rid of old cars...), right? You are posting in this thread, which is partly about that problem. The current economic downturn and related debt crisis, which is worse in Europe, exists largely because of overindulgence in entitlements. And you are aware that the problem is currently getting worse and not better, right? I'm not suggesting that we're going to collapse back to a hunter-gatherer society, but I think there is a significant non-zero risk of a long-term, significant decline in average standard of living. The healthcare cost problem is going to keep getting worse because the economic model we've chosen is flawed. Do you have a suggestion for how to fix it?
The spiral can't continue forever, of course. Either we'll fix it or it will fix itself:
1. It will fix itself by consuming (as mhselp said) a larger and larger fraction of our tax dollars until we simply can't afford to pay for more healthcare and as a result, drug compaines will stop doing research and healthcare quality will stop improving. Or:
2. (also as mhselp said) The reductions in other areas that have to be made to compensate for the "mandatory" spending on healthcare become too great to bear. You want free cancer treatment for everyone, regardless of the cost? Fine: then you can't have your roads maintained and you can't a have a police force and you can't have decent schools for your kids. Those things are not "entitlements". They aren't "mandatory spending". So they'll have to go. When our standard of living drops enough that we can't stand it anymore, we'll start to make the hard choices on "entitlements". Think that's far fetched? The consistently worst city in the US - Camden, NJ - slashed its police force by half in 2011, which significantly increased crime even more. Why would anyone do anything so idiotic? Police forces cost money and if you don't have it, you cut it. It is time we face-up to the economic and moral realities that healthcare is not a more important government function than such basics as police and that if the economy isn't doing well, everything has to take a hit.
You cannot pay for things you don't have the money to pay for.
.an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition
So you tell me: would you trade a lower chance of dying of cancer for a lower chance of being murdered? That's the type of choice we're already making.
I most certainly never said any such thing. No one "deserves" to get or die from cancer.aquitaine said:Let's get our hyperboles in order here. I never said you claimed he deserved to get it, I said you said he deserved to die because he didn't have the means to get the care.
I can't fathom why you would think that is relevant. Please explain.Do I REALLY need to quote A Christmas Carol?
Why is my position "extreme" when applied to healthcare but people accept it as just a reality of life when applied to other things that are also a matter of life and death?? Is it just because insurance is already collectivized that it makes for an easier transition to federalize it than other products like cars? Do you want to nationalize the supply of cars?But by staking out an extreme socially darwinistic position you made it a choice between the unsustainable statist solutions...or nothing. Not everyone who doesn't think those without means should just die is a statist.
Again, you miss the point. If she had lived 50 or perhaps even 30 years ago, this probably would have killed her. And people accepted that as normal back then. People lived with the risk and knowledge that the life expectancy was lower then than it is today.You know what cured your sister of cancer? Healthcare. Don't tell me it isn't necessary to live and then tell me about how it saved her life.
I can't fathom why you would think that is relevant. Please explain.
Why is my position "extreme" when applied to healthcare but people accept it as just a reality of life when applied to other things that are also a matter of life and death?? Is it just because insurance is already collectivized that it makes for an easier transition to federalize it than other products like cars? Do you want to nationalize the supply of cars?
A new safety feature was just invented for circular table saws that stops the blade in microseconds if your finger gets in the way. This would save thousands of people a year from maimings. Since it was just invented, naturally the government should buy one for everyone who currently owns a table circular saw, right?
You really need to stop saying that because it isn't true. I have, in fact, said exactly the opposite Several times. And it is ad hominem: you're trying to paint me as a bad person instead of dealing with the argument. It seems like you are trolling me here.aquitaine said:People who don't have means don't deserve to live. It's relevant because that's your position on healthcare.
Are you suggesting that healthcare should only pay for life threatening conditions? The absurdity is in your posts, not mine.No, because it isn't a direct threat to life...
See, that's the exactly the problem I mentioned with the GOP, and the absurdities in this discussion proves definitively that it is no longer a party capable of governing.
I didn't comment on it because it just looks like handwaving to me. I don't accept that the things you say would happen would happen and I don't want to get into a "will not/will to" type of argument. The fundamental issue to me is that it does not address the logical flaw in healthcare, overall; the fact that people want everything that exists because it exists.If you actually read my proposal you would notice that I didn't collectivize insurance at all. Instead I proposed a solution to the problem of tens of millions of uninsured that doesn't destroy western civilization, that is financially sustainable, and that also solves the underlying problems with our healthcare system all at once to provide people with a free market. I notice you don't say anything about that.
Their financial unsustainability is the same as everyone else's:It's more or less the Swiss model, and I don't see them going bankrupt any time soon.
aquitaine said:...I think the American Enterprise Institute has summed up the current state of the GOP quite correctly:
aquitaine said:... the problem I mentioned with the GOP, ... The only reason they are opposed to any and all healthcare reform is because ...
aquitaine said:People who don't have means don't deserve to live. It's relevant because that's your position on healthcare.
Astronuc said:Congress will apparently return on Sunday. Let's see what happens.
Somehow, I don't see heroic.ImaLooser said:Could it be that they will heroically save the world from the problem they themselves created?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/u...ators-chafe-at-inaction-over-fiscal-deal.html. . . .
Absent a solution — or even a pathway to a bill — senators whiled away the hours without any agreement, debating and voting on amendments to a surveillance measure, pondering hurricane aid, and swearing in a new senator from Hawaii. Retiring senators, who had anticipated that their services would no longer be needed, worked in offices in varying states of disassembly, their staffs pecking out e-mails on iPads because their computers had been carted away.
. . . .
The Congressional impasse over how to avoid tax increases and spending cuts has left this entire city gripping Starbucks cups procured from Georgetown to Capitol Hill, bearing the message “come together,” to wait in low-grade misery for the next chapter in the drama. This would be Sunday night, when House members arrive, just ahead of New Year’s Eve at the summons of their leaders, who decided Thursday that they could not afford to be home killing time while Senate Democratic leaders took to C-Span to take shots at the absent House.
. . . .
ImaLooser said:Could it be that they will heroically save the world from the problem they themselves created?
Astronuc said:Monday morning will be interesting. I imagine the equities markets will pop up with a deal, and tank if there is no deal.
The last several days have been pretty volatile.
I expect that anything that might be signed in the next week or two still won't be viewed favorably by the markets.Astronuc said:Monday morning will be interesting. I imagine the equities markets will pop up with a deal, and tank if there is no deal.
The last several days have been pretty volatile.
Monday could be a double whammy!Borg said:I expect that anything that might be signed in the next week or two still won't be viewed favorably by the markets.
Astronuc said:Monday could be a double whammy!
The U.S. Will Hit the Debt Ceiling on Monday
http://news.yahoo.com/u-hit-debt-ceiling-monday-124731632.html
http://live.wsj.com/video/us-to-hit...41.html#!71D6FEC5-760F-4F6B-A67C-1FEF3867FA41
I wonder if that has to do with the supplemental bill for Hurricane Sandy.mheslep said:Then the deficit has grown worse. Some months ago the next debt ceiling was not to be reached before late January.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-acti...r-60b-hurricane-sandy-emergency-spending-billThe Senate passed the emergency-spending bill for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts on Friday night.
The 62-32 vote came after the Senate worked all day Friday on amendments to H.R. 1, a vehicle to provide $60.4 billion to storm recovery efforts.
. . .
Astronuc said:I wonder if that has to do with the supplemental bill for Hurricane Sandy.
Senate votes in favor of $60B Hurricane Sandy emergency-spending bill...
Except that Geitner, US Secy of Treasury, indicated that the US government would hit the debt ceiling on Mon - or maybe Tuesday.(Reuters) - Investors fearing a stock market plunge - if the United States tumbles off the "fiscal cliff" next week - may want to relax.
But they should be scared if a few weeks later, Washington fails to reach a deal to increase the nation's debt ceiling because that raises the threat of a default, another credit downgrade and a panic in the financial markets.
. . . .
Astronuc said:Wall Street Week Ahead: Cliff may be a fear, but debt ceiling much scarier
http://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-week-ahead-cliff-may-fear-debt-150342441--sector.html
Except that Geitner, US Secy of Treasury, indicated that the US government would hit the debt ceiling on Mon - or maybe Tuesday.
Makes one wonder if anyone in Washington is paying attention.
At this point, I would expect debt ceiling as well as the tax law would be under discussion.
JonDE said:If the author is suggesting that we could go over the fiscal cliff and have congress go through another round of debate over the debt ceiling, I would doubt that very much. So soon after going over the "cliff" I doubt there would be much support at all to do it again. Then again, with politicians, you never know.
Today is the day, or perhaps tomorrow.Senate leaders and their aides spent Saturday searching for a formula to extend tax cuts for most Americans that could win bipartisan support in the Senate and final approval in the fractious House by the new year, hoping to prevent large tax increases and budget cuts that could threaten the fragile economy.
As part of the last-minute negotiations, the lawmakers were haggling over unemployment benefits, cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, taxes on large inheritances and how to limit the impact of the alternative minimum tax, . . . that is increasingly encroaching on the middle class.
President Obama said that if talks between the Senate leaders broke down, he wanted the Senate to schedule an up-or-down vote on a narrower measure that would extend only the middle-class tax breaks and unemployment benefits.
. . . .
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-fiscal-cliff-dive-more-battles-cliffs-212008912--business.html. . . .
The so-called "continuing resolutions" to which a divided Congress has increasingly resorted to keep the government operating, provide a "very powerful tool" to pry out spending cuts, said Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said he will not be satisfied until there are substantial cuts to federal retirement and healthcare benefits known as entitlements, producing savings in the $4.5 trillion to $5 trillion range.
"Unfortunately for America," said Corker, "the next line in the sand will be the debt ceiling."
Most observers see the $16.4 trillion debt limit as the true fiscal cliff in the new year because if not increased, it would eventually lead to a default on U.S. Treasury debt, an event that could prove cataclysmic for financial markets.
. . . .
BobG said:On the other hand, 8 of the last 11 Republican VP candidates prior to Ryan never won another election. Perhaps Ryan could find an entirely unique way to extend the curse.