Re: the debt deal reached Sunday night ...
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Oh look... (Score:5, Insightful)
...completely manufactured "crisis" averted at the 11th hour. Really dramatic. Cue both sides claiming victory and siting crisis as "how hard they work for you!", and cable news all atwitter at the latest pre-approved storyline.
Then when the dust settles, the democrats can go back to selling out to big media and the 'fiscally responsible' republicans can slash any spending on the poor, unless the person in the white house has R after their name, in which case they can go back to spending like drunken sailors.
St. Reagan (Score:4, Interesting)
Saint Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times and none of the Republicans complained.
He raised taxes and they called him a national hero.
How come they're all complaining now?
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"However, the debt is now so high that the rest of the world wonders if you (the USA) has the capability to pay it back."
What you speak of is a debt per assets ratio. We are quite good compared to the rest of the world I heard we are about 90 GDP to Debt, I was told it was more like 60 when I asked a family member who is an expert in this area so my numbers could be off. In comparison Japan is 180! Greece was close to 140 when all hell broke loose.
If any nation that should lose its AAA rating it should be J
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The recession hasn't ended, in fact it's much closer to a depression.
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Japan doesn't have a AAA rating. They're AA-. Fewer than 20 countries have a AAA rating.
Standard & Poor Sovereigns Ratings List [standardandpoors.com]
Wikipedia's list of countries by credit rating [wikipedia.org]
Sovereign Ratings Infographic from Reuters [thomsonreuters.com]
Re:St. Reagan (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting. All but one country with an AAA rating has tax payer based medical care and a socialist party in one form or another. I wonder if the country without those "burdens" will be dropped from the list.
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Japan does not have an AAA rating. Japan is rated AA- (4th from best) by 2/3 agencies, and third from best by Fitch. In contrast, Greece is rated CC (20th best). We have a long way to fall before comparisons to Greece enter the equation! As a result, being "only" 90% Debt:GDP, although better than Greece, may not be as safe as you might think.
See wiki for the scale (which also applies to their sovereign debt ratings)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating#Corporate_credit_ratings [wikipedia.org]
The question isn't "are t
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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>>You do know that most of this increase was caused *during* the Bush wars, right? The Bush administration kept it off the books with accounting tricks, Obama brought it back on the books.
Bush and Obama are both responsible for the mess we're in right now. And Barney Frank, for causing the whole housing mess to begin with (as much as anyone in gov't is responsible).
The Tea Party is a bit too hardline for my taste, but they successfully raised a 3rd party opposition to the big-government Democrat party
Tea party = subset of Republican party (Score:4, Informative)
Bush and Obama are both responsible for the mess we're in right now.
As is the whole of congress. What's your point? However the seeds of what we are experiencing were mostly sown before Obama was in office (not counting this current insane argument over whether or not to raise the debt limit). Obama's administration can reasonably be criticized for not being more effective in cleaning up the mess but the mess was mostly caused by or during the previous administration(s) and previous congresses. Let's not ignore the fact that parts of the private sector played a pretty big role in the fiscal crisis too.
The Tea Party is a bit too hardline for my taste, but they successfully raised a 3rd party opposition to the big-government Democrat party and the big-government Republican party.
To my knowledge there is not a single "Tea Party" member of congress who is not also a member of the Republican party. While there may be some nuance to it for all realistic purposes the Tea Party is a (somewhat irrational and militant) wing of the Republican party. They are not a third party, they are simply a vocal and somewhat extreme wing of one of the two existing parties. You pretty much never hear about a "Tea Party Democrat" but you hear about "Tea Party Republicans" all the time.
$100B in annual cuts is insignificant
Hah! Cutting $100B out of a $1400B deficit hardly counts as significant. All that does is slow the bleeding. To balance the budget (much less reduce the debt) approximately $1.5 TRILLION will have to either be cut from Medicare, Social Security and/or Defense or taxes will have to be raised by a similar amount or some combination of the two. Whatever is chosen, it isn't going to be pleasant but sooner or later taxes have to be raised and/or the big entitlements and defense have to be cut. The two parties insisting on one side that taxes cannot ever be raised and on the other that programs cannot ever be cut shows our so called "leaders" do not deserve to remain in office past the next election cycle.
Re:Tea party = subset of Republican party (Score:4, Insightful)
>>As is the whole of congress. What's your point?
My point is that up till now there's been nobody trying to rein in the spending in the capital until the Tea Party revolution occured in 2010, then it suddenly became a priority for both major parties. Give credit where it's due.
>>They are not a third party, they are simply a vocal and somewhat extreme wing of one of the two existing parties
They did it the smart way - third parties have a snowball's chance in Washington of being elected, so they mounted primary challenges to a lot of established Republicans and took over seats that way. If you weren't paying attention at the time, the national RNC was adamantly against the Tea Party (the RNC being made up of McCainites) before they were for it, to paraphrase John Kerry. You might remember the uproar from the Tea Party when the RNC first posted a "Tea Party" page on gop.com - it was widely (and rightly) seen as an attempt by the RNC to grab the reins of the bull.
>>Hah! Cutting $100B out of a $1400B deficit hardly counts as significant
Right... which is why I called it "insignificant". =)
Re:St. Reagan (Score:5, Informative)
Only if you don't take inflation into account. Take a look at the US dept as a percentage of GDP, and it is clear who
1) The big spenders are: Roosevelt, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Obama
2) Brought the dept down: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton.
Under all Democratic Presidents the dept went down, except Roosevelt and Obama.
Under all Republican Presidents the dept went up, except Nixon.
And for both Roosevelt and Obama, you can say that a major part of their spending is related to things outside their control, like the Second World War, War in Irak&Afganistan and Financial Crisis.
Maybe Roosevelt shouldn't have entered the war?
Maybe Obama should have left Irak and Afganistan the day he came into office, and maybe GM, Chrystler, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Citibank, BoA, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac and others should have gone bankrupt?
I don't think either had a real choice in the matter. But you might see that differently.
Google it yourself, or look at an image like this: http://moneystockstycoons.com/financial-rankings/united-states-debt/ [moneystockstycoons.com]
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Personally I voted that I'm wildly happy that they reached a deal. I don't think I would have liked the economic outlook of a US defaulting on it's bonds. We have enough trouble here in Europe with Greece, something similar happening on the scale of the USA would have caused major havoc in the world economy.
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Those companies really were "too big to fail". It was a hostage situation. We had to bail them out, because they were holding our economy hostage. This entire debt limit crisis was more of the same.
We have not addressed the underlying causes, whatever those may be. Perhaps regulation has been too badly weakened. If we don't police an activity where there's scope for crime, opportunists will notice, and pounce. Expect more economic thuggery. In particular, I feel uneasy about the stock market. A gu
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This isn't reddit, so I'll probably get voted -1 for this, but I honestly don't think the Republicans are interested in anything but destroying common people like me as a sort of collateral damage from their get-the-rich-richer-quick scheme.
I don't think they see that as the outcome. They honestly believe in the "trickle down" theory. That trickle-down has been shown to be wrong for 30 years now is more cognative dissonance than anything else.
Call me mean... (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me mean and crazy, but as my investing timeline is more on the scale of decades rather than years or months, I was kind-of hoping for some kind of crash in the stock market, so I could buy more stock. But, deep-down, there was part of me that realized there was no way that either party was going to let the markets crash, even if it meant signing something at 11:30pm the night before. I reasoned this due to the government's response to the threat of a shutdown earlier this year. Notice how at the eleventh hour, everyone finally agreed to something. They weren't willing to upset elderly people. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it's probably for the best that the markets didn't crash.
What's fascinating is how President Obama specifically said he wouldn't guarantee that Social Security checks go out in the event of a default. It's like he was *trying* to scare the elderly citizens of this country into twisting their representatives' and senators' arms.
And there's a *really* fascinating article at MSNBC [msn.com] which suggests that a better figure for evaluating our fiscal crisis is the fiscal gap. Some economists have discounted all the future payments and future revenues for the government, and evaluated the net present value. If their calculations are correct, it suggests the gap between our revenues and expenses to the time horizon is $211 trillion. (That is "trillion," not "billion.")
There's an apocryphal quote floating around on the internet, allegedly by a Scottish historian. It's probable that he never said it, but I think the idea is true: A democracy can only last until the people realize they can vote for whoever promises them the most goodies. The MSNBC article references this idea: We're reaching a point where we're going to have so many old people, they can vote against anyone who will reform (or "cut") Social Security and Medicare.
Sorry to sound to pessimistic, but we, my friends, are *doomed*.
Social security can be fixed easily (via cuts) (Score:3)
Fixing social security:
1) Raise the age for benefits. (People are healthier longer, this makes sense and is fair)
2) Means-test the benefit. Why are we transferring money from the working class (who are poor) to rich people?
3) Remove the $105k income cap. Tax all the way up. (This will be unpopular with people who worship the rich, of which we have many in this country seemingly.)
But measure 1) will work all by itself and we have done it and can keep doing it, and only harm future beneficiaries.
Medicar
Definitions would need to be altered (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever since SS was instituted it has been defined as tantamount to a pension. This is why there is no means testing for benefits and a limited wage basis: it is a pension that workers pay into that has a maximum benefit payout [ssa.gov] based on how much the worker paid in over their life. If you take the present value of an annuity that pays out based on what the worker has paid in (with a max benefit cap), then it is a simple actuarial calculation to determine what the maximum pay-in should be, and this is how the inflation-indexed ~105k wage basis is derived. If a worker pays in more, they get paid more out—directly correlated to the amount they paid. I am hard-pressed to believe this is unfair.
Now, if SS is going to be redefined as pure wealth redistribution program funded by payroll taxes, then having means testing and an unlimited wage basis will be self-consistent. Of course, this will nullify the ability for people to claim, "I paid in, so I deserve to receive a payout" because means testing and eliminating wage basis decouples the received benefit from the individual's contribution. In this case, SS would essentially become yet another welfare program like Medicare (where payout is unrelated to pay-in). Changing the conceptual basis of the program cuts both ways.
It would be great if SS automatically indexed an increasing retirement age to increasing life expectancy, much like the wage basis is indexed to inflation. Given the SSA-reported life expectancies [ssa.gov] for 1940 vs. 1990, the retirement age should already be up to 68+.
I firmly believe that SS benefits will be paid with Monopoly-grade money by the time I retire (eg. by deliberately understating CPI for years) and the entire system will become a joke. I think most people in my generation are seriously looking into alternative plans to ensure our basic costs of living are covered rather than relying on SS.
It Was A Trader Crises (Score:3)
Public education will still be shitty.
Jobs will still go overseas to due tax policies.
University education cost will still increase.
Inflation will only get worse.
Energy cost and oil dependence will get worse.
Population growth will become unsustainable.
We will still be waging multiple fronts in the middle-east.
Banks will still make massive amounts of money. This was about the banks and the investors not losing out.
America is New Rome.
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But so what? We may end up with inflation, or going back to some kind of gold standard, but we will survive. America may remain the dominant country in the world, or it may fall into second or third place, but it
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As likely as not, with our improvements in technology, and our growing world peace (really, look up the war stats), the next fifty years will be better than the last.
Uhhh, I seriously doubt that. And I don't live in the US (France) and I even believe it's going to be equivalent in the US and in the EU. Nations borrow and borrow and borrow, like never before. But what's the point really?
I borrowed, and it was to buy a house. Hence, I made a promise to my bank to repay 1000€ per month for the next 20 years. Why did I do that? Because I wanted a house now and I didn't have the money now. It was a one time thing. I will repay that debt for the next 19 years, and all is
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Beats the shit out of being New Just-About-Anything-Else.
What would you rather be, New Carthage?
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New Zimbabwe...?
Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
To be quite frank, I had a blast in the US. Recently I took my third trip over there. The first two trips were to Atlanta and Roseville, they were business trips where I had the opportunity to spend some extra leisure time in between weeks. This trip was the mother of all road trips, 4000 miles across NC, SC, GA, FL, LA, AL, MS and back to GA.
The thing that struck my wife and I on this trip was the enormous discrepancy between rich and poor. New Orleans, Birmingham and many places on the road were desperately poor while over in Atlanta you'll find neighborhoods that are bursting with money. Also, the difference between FL versus MS, AL, LA was quite shocking. Furthermore, you could just see and smell where the money was within a given state. The point is that the US is segregated. Segregated based on wealth, which in some cases but not all, means segregated along racial lines. The cleaners and waiters are much more often black or hispanic than white, and quite frankly it is a bit disgusting to see.
For the life of me I do not understand how a civilized human being can live in the lap of luxury while his or her neighbor is living in squalor and filth.
Having said that, I was unimpressed with the state of the infrastructure. Roads are simply not as they are in Europe. The French péage, the Dutch highways, the German autobahn, the Swiss road network and the Scandinavian roads are just a lot better for various reasons.
Furthermore I was unimpressed with the level of education. The amount of people I ran into that believe dinosaurs roamed the earth 6000 years ago and who thought "Holland" was a town in Michigan, not to mention the amount of people who thought they traveled a lot because they saw 10 US States or more, is staggeringly high.
All this while we met a frightful amount of good, nice people. People who deserve a better educational system, a re-built home, a prospect for a future and most of all: Better food. The food in the US is horribly expensive if you want fresh produce. Stuff that is boxed and processed can be bought for no money what so ever. So it's really not difficult to see how overweight is a class issue, really.
This brings us to three subjects:
1) Why is it so hard to not let the Texas board of education decide what is said about evolution and history in schools across the nation? Don't you people realize those idiots are insane fundamentalists?
2) Why is it so hard to realize the premise of universal health care is quite civilized? It's not Stalinistic, it's not Satanic, it's the Civilized Option. Someone gets sick, the country makes sure there is adequate help and insurance for them. Common sense.
3) Why is it so hard to realize the Bush tax cuts are completely uncivilized? Your working class is paying the bills for three wars you shouldn't even be in to begin with, and you are hell bent on letting the richest people in the country screw you out of billions of dollars of tax money?
I cannot believe that you're letting a black mother of three children in Poplarville, MS work three jobs in order to be able to put said kids through a mediocre school, while the fat cats are getting bonuses, tax breaks and all the choice in the world.
Uncivilized. Plain and simple.
My wife is Israeli, and she had never been to the States. She also had a blast. But this is what she had to say:
"It's not the land of opportunity. It's the land of taking advantage of whomever you can."
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1) Why is it so hard to not let the Texas board of education decide what is said about evolution and history in schools across the nation? Don't you people realize those idiots are insane fundamentalists?
Texas has the largest public school district, so the book writers and publishers pander to Texas. Then they sell those same books to other states, because economies of scale and of monopolies. If you only have a handful of publishers, and they all print the same stuff, you're out of options. The way education laws are written in other states, they favor established publishers. So you can just print up your own stuff.
I almost hope all this 2012 scaremongering comes true, because by Zeus, we deserve it.
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>>Texas has the largest public school district
The largest district...? The State of Hawaii is actually all one school district, but what I think you mean is that Texas has more K12 students. Let's check numbers:
Texas: 5 million K-12 students
California: over 6 million K-12 students (http://data1.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/DQ/EnrTimeRptSt.aspx?Level=State&cChoice=TSEnr1&cYear=2010-11&cLevel=State&cTopic=Enrollment&myTimeFrame=S)
In terms of influence, California surpassed Texas back in the
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Thank you for writing that. Great to have a broader perspective.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife is Israeli, and she had never been to the States. She also had a blast. But this is what she had to say:
"It's not the land of opportunity. It's the land of taking advantage of whomever you can."
No disrespect. Does anyone else see the irony in this quote?
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no irony, but I think we can all see the disrespect.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
His wife mentioned that the US is a land of taking advantage of people. His wife is an Israeli, Israel takes advantage of American religious loyalty ( Christians waiting for their Armageddon as well as American Jews ) to get powerful military technology which they use to take advantage of Palestinians. Part of that is brutal acts which are necessary to protect themselves, which they have a right to do, but as a country Israel also goes beyond that.
They can, because they have the power to do so. Hence taking advantage of people.
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(Sorry to not respond to the first part of your post, it's late - glad you did enjoy your trip over here.)
This brings us to three subjects:
1) Why is it so hard to not let the Texas board of education decide what is said about evolution and history in schools across the nation? Don't you people realize those idiots are insane fundamentalists?
I presume you're equating this to the poor state of education here in the US? First of all, it's not so much that way - for instance California books and teaching ideas are also used on a widespread basis. Truthfully, I ascribe the pitiful state of American educational effectiveness to a few things:
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be "common sense" to you, but I don't see how you don't realize what you just said is impossible - at least in the sense of providing the "best" healthcare for everyone. There are documented horrible failures of British and Canadian healthcare for instance - you are at the mercy of a bureaucracy in order to get treatment. Often the wait times are measured in months. There is a reason so many wealthy foreigners come to America for major procedures.
Just as with your ideas about taxing the rich, there are unintended consequences. Many doctors are quitting the profession because of 0bamacare.
Yeah cause I am sure some lapses in health care are much better than having no chance of having it all, give me a break.
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Same in Denmark. Public health care sucks, but it's there, if you have something non life threatening you are in for a bit of a wait. Life threatening stuff will get you through faster.
We have the option of doing private health care, a lot of business are now providing their work force with that since a sick employee doesn't produce anything.
It sucks for you if you break you foot (2 month wait time for orthopedic consultancy, which is more than the healing time - been there) and aren't covered for private,
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Many doctors are quitting the profession because of 0bamacare.
Citation please? Most of my doctor friends (I work in a science department at a medical school) are actually staunchly pro-single payer / nationalized health. The data [reuters.com] seems to back that up as well.
The original article [springerlink.com] has some more detailed information.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would have to guess you're woefully uninformed about the tax structure in the US. About 50% of the population (on the low-income side) pays zero income tax - including your "black mother of three" - in fact she probably gets the "earned income credit", which is a chunk of "free money" - courtesy of those who do pay taxes. The top 1% of earners pays 38% of income tax (yes, right now with the Bush cuts in effect). The top 10% of earners pay just under 70% of the total income tax collected.
Income tax is not the only tax. I don't know much about the tax structure in the US, but my guess is that if you look at the total taxation (at least include sales tax), your will get completely different results...
According to the Tax Foundation [taxfoundation.org], the top 40% earn 62.5% of the income and pay 71.2% of the total taxes. That does not seem disproportionate to me. (Full disclaimer: I'm French, therefore I'm a communist to you).
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This ignores the fact that the top 1% control more than 50% of the assets, and that the bottom 90% own only 14% of the assets. Remember that income is not the same as wealth, and that there are plenty of ways to accumulate wealth without having high income.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other point is that low taxes greatly enhance productivity and job creation, whereas if you raise taxes on "the rich", "the rich" will either retire, move out of the country, or find a way to shelter their money - none of which increases tax revenues. In fact, in all of those cases revenues fall.
I challenge you to provide evidence *not* produced by a right-wing think tank of this "trickle down" effect. If this were true why have we not seen wild job growth since the beginning of the Bush tax cuts? Why is it always assumed that the rich will naturally invest their massive accumulated wealth into ventures that lead to US job creation? Evidence suggest they save most of it, and earn yet more money off of it by saving it in such a way that they earn the most interest and are taxed the least. Great for them, that's the way the system is set up and they are taking full advantage.
Unchecked capitalism is a dead end. It requires limitless growth - the path to utopia is not the continued creation of wal-marts for the poor and middle class to buy ever more worthless shit from rich companies run by rich people.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to argue with you. Especially about a subject that has been very effective in destroy the US economy. But. Tax cuts and deregulation have created huge numbers of jobs and massive amounts of wealth. The jobs are all over seas and the wealth is in the pockets of anyone with no moral values what so ever; but, it is still true to fact. I'm sorry.
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The top 1% earn 24% of all income. Top 1% represents over $350,000, but we know of individuals who are making millions. Billions. The remaining 9% of your top 10? They make what, $100-$350K/year? They pay between 28-33%/year, or $28K-$115K, leaving them with between 72-115.5K. That's still pretty decent bank.
For one of those biggier bonus folks (let's say a nice $1M a year to be conservative), we're looking at $770K of wealth left.
See the difference?
If we taxed those guys 50%, they'd STILL have far more than the remaining 99%.
That's the point.
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So when someone is able to succeed they should be punished by having a larger share taken away? One should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
I'm not against taxation as it is necessary for roads, police, etc., but I am against one person being taxed at 50% while another gets a free ride simply because one is more successful and productive than the other.
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So I take it you're in favor of taxing capital gains [wikipedia.org] at the same rate as income?
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I'm against capital gains taxes as currently structured. Period.
I'd love to see a sliding scale of taxations based on how long you owned the asset/investment. Longer term holding = lower tax rates.
Reward investing(long term), punish speculation (short term). No more bubbles please.
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No, those that have more to lose by the government dissolving should pay more. Those that have benefited from the existence of society should be required to give something back so that the next generation has those same opportunities.
People don't become rich based upon their own labors, nobody in their right mind would suggest such a thing because it's asinine. You become wealthy by having your money work for you. Usury was banned by Christianity for a long time for more or less that precise reason, it allo
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"So when someone is able to succeed they should be punished by having a larger share taken away?"
Funding civilization is not a "punishment".
As mechanization and computerization increase, the wealthy have greater opportunity for control of profit, capital gains, intellectual property, media ownership, economies of scale, etc. The options over time then are either (a) dial up socialism, or (b) turn into a plutocracy with a large shanty-town lower class.
Alternatively, I would be happy to have 100% estate taxes
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As an Aussie visiting Europe I thought the same of your meat prices, They were easily 30-40% higher then Aussie prices. But then again your fresh vegies are cheaper. With Banana's reaching A$15 a KG this year due to the floods in Queensland.
The overwhelming majority of Yanks are great people, you begin to ask yourself "where did GWB actually come from" after meeting some actu
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>The amount of people I ran into that believe dinosaurs roamed the earth 6000 years ago
So you were walking around asking people when dinosaurs roamed the earth? I find that implausible, otherwise - in all my years of living in America, I can't think of one time when, say, a waitress at IHOP casually remarked to me, "Hey, you know the earth is only 6000 years old?"
>>who thought "Holland" was a town in Michigan, not to mention the amount of people who thought they traveled a lot because they saw 10 US States or more, is staggeringly high.
It's always a safe bet to bet on ignorance, though if Holland actually is a town in Michigan, what are you complaining about? There's also a Paris in Texas and a lot of other states as well. And to be fair, France is the size of Texas, and England the size of California, so 10 US States is like visiting half of Western Europe. =)
>>The thing that struck my wife and I on this trip was the enormous discrepancy between rich and poor
You've never been to the UK, then? I'd never seen so many poor or unemployed (and hopeless) people walking around as when I visited Wales for a bit of a castle tour, our drove around in Belfast, or walked around in Ilford / Gant's Hill.
Actually, what really bothered me about the UK was how a middle class existence so closely resembled how our poor people live there. They live in endless rows of identical flats, each of which looks crummier than the Section 8 housing we provide to poor people around here, but probably costs 10x as much.
>>1) Why is it so hard to not let the Texas board of education decide what is said about evolution and history in schools across the nation? Don't you people realize those idiots are insane fundamentalists?
1) Don't believe everything you read on Slashdot these days. California is more influential than Texas in textbook design these days.
2) You should read Slashdot more often. These "insane fundamentalists" struck down the anti-evolution measure by a unanimous vote.
>>3) Why is it so hard to realize the Bush tax cuts are completely uncivilized? Your working class is paying the bills for three wars you shouldn't even be in to begin with, and you are hell bent on letting the richest people in the country screw you out of billions of dollars of tax money?
For fuck's sake, stop getting all of your news from HuffPo. Corporations and Wealthy individuals (top 20%) pay 75% of all income tax in America. The bottom quintile pays NEGATIVE 10%. The middle 60% of America pays the remaining 25%.
I know it's rough when facts don't align properly with your preset sense of reality, but I'm fucking tired of people spreading the lies that the working poor bear the income tax burden in America. When I made 18k a year as a grad student, I paid money into retirement/SSN/Medicare, but I didn't pay anything in taxes.
>>People who deserve a better educational system
It sounds to me like your country needed a better educational system.
Oh, snap.
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For fuck's sake, stop getting all of your news from HuffPo. Corporations and Wealthy individuals (top 20%) pay 75% of all income tax in America. The bottom quintile pays NEGATIVE 10%. The middle 60% of America pays the remaining 25%.
That still leaves 10% then :-P
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And to be fair, France is the size of Texas, and England the size of California, so 10 US States is like visiting half of Western Europe. =)
(This is true in the geographic sense, but I think an American who visits Mexico and Panama could claim to have travelled more than a European who's visited a few other European countries, which is better than an American visiting 10 states. The human/social differences are greater.)
The thing that struck my wife and I on this trip was the enormous discrepancy between rich and poor
You've never been to the UK, then? I'd never seen so many poor or unemployed (and hopeless) people walking around as when I visited Wales for a bit of a castle tour, our drove around in Belfast, or walked around in Ilford / Gant's Hill.
US unemployment is actually very slightly higher than UK unemployment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12935003 [bbc.co.uk] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117 [bbc.co.uk]
They're pretty similar though, so I think the only difference is the visibility
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>>This is true in the geographic sense, but I think an American who visits Mexico and Panama could claim to have travelled more than a European who's visited a few other European countries, which is better than an American visiting 10 states. The human/social differences are greater.)
Sure, but it's also a lot easier for a European to visit another country than it is for an American living in Nebraska or something. If you live in London, you can be in Paris via the Eurostar chunnel in what? Two hours?
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>>Your observations are pointless about the UK and Belfast. There is no comparison because it's a different lifestyle and practically a different world
And... you're an idiot.
Though it's kind of pointless insulting an anonymous coward, I know, I know.
The GP made the point that the poor in America were horribly off, but the fact of the matter is that while it SUCKS to be poor (I know, I've been there), I'd rather be poor and living in America than poor and in the UK. And both of those are vastly prefera
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Holland *is* a town in Michigan...
Three trips and you are an "expert" (Score:2)
To be quite frank, I had a blast in the US. Recently I took my third trip over there.
Wow, three trips and you completely understand the US. My hat is off to you. I'm sure I completely understand China because I took an extended trip there once.
"Holland" was a town in Michigan, not to mention the amount of people who thought they traveled a lot because they saw 10 US States or more, is staggeringly high.
Holland [google.com] IS a town in Michigan. It also happens to be some other things as well. You CAN travel a lot and never leave the US. Have you looked at a map? The US is enormous. France is roughly the size of Texas. The fact that it all happens to be in a single country doesn't mean that you haven't traveled a lot. Hell you could spend your whole li
Re:Three trips and you are an "expert" (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh, being "well traveled" is pretty meaningless. You can travel a lot, even through regions that are culturally extremely different, but only see tourist landmarks and, otherwise, not learn a lot. You can also travel around a relatively small, homogeneous area and learn a lot. However, that's quite difficult and time consuming. It's probably easier to get a sense of the world -- living conditions, cultural traditions (including religion and cuisine), traffic laws, political climate -- when you travel to really different countries and step outside your hotel without a guide. You're 100% correct, though, that traveling around (at least: Western) isn't very different from traveling around the US in terms of drastically new things you see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality [wikipedia.org]
Re:Common Sense, anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure what you expect. Some people are so bad with money you could GIVE them thousands a month and they'd still live in a ramshackle house while driving a beat-up old car with wheels worth more than the entire rest of the vehicle. There will always be wealth inequities as long as there are capability inequities. Throwing money at things won't help at all (witness the US public education system).
The GP said nothing about throwing money at the US education system. He merely pointed out how broken it is and that results in a large number of ignorant Americans.
The US education system is broken, even though they still understand their purpose in educating the American people the entire process needs to be fixed so it meets the requirements asked of it.
Saying people are bad with money is a cop out to prevent you from admitting the real source of the problem, ignorance. Remember that money management is something that is taught, not inherited genetically.
I'm not saying there isn't room to help those in need but by any standards I can think of, America's poor aren't anywhere near as badly situated as they could be.
Compared to third world nations I've travelled to I'm sure this is true. But the US is not a third world nation. Considering it's wealth, the US is a very bad place to be poor.
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According to the US government figures "the average poor American has more living space than the average non-poor European, has full kitchen amenities, a car (a third of the poor have two or more), two color televisions, a DVD player and VCR, and if they have children they were likely to have a game system like an Xbox or Play Station as well."
On the topic of food(2001 gov report for this
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A non-poor French or English?
Perhaps a non-poor Pole or Latvian.
All four of those people are "European" yet only the first example can be considered 1st world nations.
I dare say you've been duped by a bad report good sir. By lumping the poorer countries in with the richer ones, you aren't comparing like for like. Welcome to how to write propaganda, lesson 1, stack the decks in
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>>A non-poor French or English?
Have you seen the little terraced townhouses that middle class people live in in London? Or the tiny flats? Flats cost roughly $600,000, and Terraced townhomes roughly $800,000. For $600k you get a great detached house in a nice neighborhood in Los Angeles. For $800k, you can buy a nice detached house in Pasadena or Mountain View. You'll have a ton more square footage, a real backyard, and your house won't look like it was built in the Industrial Revolution.
Seriously, I
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>>A non-poor French or English?
Have you seen the little terraced townhouses that middle class people live in in London? Or the tiny flats? Flats cost roughly $600,000, and Terraced townhomes roughly $800,000.
That's roughly the value of the house I rent in London, but London isn't "normal". It's the most expensive city in the EU, yet still over 8 million people live here. People living in London have generally chosen to live in one of the world's cultural capitals.
I'm sure I'd have no problem getting a job in another British city, but I don't want to. I'd have more space (or more money, whichever), but they're boring. How much does $800,000 get you in New York? (More space than London, presumably, but less than
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> That's roughly the value of the house I rent in London, but London isn't "normal". It's the most expensive city in the EU ...and he was comparing it to Los Angeles, also one of the most expensive cities. He wasn't making unlike comparisons.
A redneck in a trailer probably has more space of their own than an average Western European. Possibly more disposable income too.
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Exactly, and that is WHY you do not give them money, but give them service instead. Do not give them money, give them healthcare and give their children a good education to break the pattern (funny thing is that it works in all the countries that have tried it, which is what
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I'm not from the USA but tell me, isn't the US public education system an example of something that has been harshly cut back since the early 1980s and has never been funded well since?
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> The cleaners and waiters are much more often black or hispanic than white, and quite frankly it is a bit disgusting to see.
My guess is this is pretty much the same in the Netherlands (and in Europe as a whole) but with Turks and Moroccans (or more broadly, Muslims).
No. Maybe eastern Europeans, but that is only transient (as wages in the eastern EU countries catch up, the workers in the west often return). Non-EU immigrants in general do lower paid work, but that's different from black/etc citizens typically doing those jobs (which isn't the case).
Muslims are certainly not an "underclass" in Europe.
And maybe I'm just a dumb American, but I think we handle our (significantly greater) ethnic diversity better than Europe handles Muslims immigrants.
Don't forget all the other ethnicities in Europe, who are hardly ever in the news. Also, don't forget the 99.99% of Muslims you don't hear about either. The problem people a
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The recent tragedy in Norway is evidence of this
Oh please, the tragedy in Norway is equivalent to the tragedy in Virginia Tech a while back.
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.. If you can not afford kids, then DO NOT HAVE SEX!
...
If you have low expenses, (say ~$30,000/year) and interest is a mere 5%, you only need $600,000 to break even.
Contraception.
Inflation.
Look 'em up.
Held Hostage (Score:2)
We have a debt/deficit problem (once again) and it should be fixed. My preference would be to (a) end foreign wars and major surveillance operations, and (b) raise taxes on the wealthy to something like 1930-1980 levels (i.e., ~90% income). Granted that won't happen; a balanced negotiation would be half cuts and half tax increases, and I could live with that. But unfortunately we've successfully been held hostage by the hard-right wing (again). What we've gotten is the opposite of a middle-ground settlement
Answer: Spend Less - why is this so difficult? (Score:3)
We have a debt/deficit problem (once again) and it should be fixed.
Liken this to being grossly overweight. The cause is the same and the solution is the same too. Just change spending for eating and every doctor on the planet will tell you (in a chorus if you ask nicely) that there is only one solution and it's a very, very simple one.
Until america and other countries, too learn to balance inputs and outputs, the fat^H^H^H debt problem will only increase. You can't continue eating more calories than you use up - you can't continue spending more money than you make. So ti
I was hoping for no deal and a dollar crash (Score:3, Insightful)
Raise my debt ceiling (Score:3)
Disappointed but not suprised... (Score:3)
That those idiots in Washington can't understand you can not fix a budget without increasing taxes. It was the idiot move of cutting taxes left and right over the past 12 years that started this frigging mess.... oh and the silly war on the middle east thing we still have going.
Vote Third Party (Score:4, Insightful)
If there was ever a time where it is plainly evident to the majority of the Citizens of the United States of America that our career (and just voted in) politicians on BOTH sides ultimately do not truly care or wish to represent their constituents, this "crisis" over the debt is it.
This is the time to increase how many sides there are in politics of all levels - from local to national. We need more accurate representation across the board - this country is not just Democrats and Republicans. It hasn't been for a long time. Of course, the current party in power (because there is very little difference these days between Dems and Repubs) wants to remain in power and thus there are high barriers of entry for the so-called Third Parties. NOW is the time for Americans to push for those barriers to get on tickets to be removed. NOW is the time for those who truly want to see better debate and more accurate representation of their concerns to let their voices be heard. NOW is the time to throw that straw-man argument everyone kicks around when a third party is mentioned right back out there - A Vote for Democrats and Republicans is a Wasted VOTE!
Bring some sanity to American political system by bringing in NEW points of view - Green, Libertarian, Populist, and many others - to the table. Now is truly the time for a change and one which could help the United States move forward - not stagnate, which is what we're doing under our two party system. With the amount of dissatisfaction among the populace, it could happen. The makings of opening our political process are there, waiting for those of us interested in a new path and some actual change in the status quo.
I have no desire to hold an office because, frankly, that kind of power scares me. Representing, _truly_ representing, the hopes, fears, concerns, and wishes of those constituents who helped put you into that office? Yeah, that weighs on a person I would think. With that said, if it would help break open the system and start the movement I spoke of above, I would willingly submit and run for an office - with the full disclosure that I do NOT care who helped me get into office, I will do my best to represent the will (of the majority) of the the people while also representing the party and, of course, my beliefs (which I would share openly).
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I apologize for any bias but its largely shaped by the snippets I read about who said what to who cause I just don't have the masochism to really follow this s
Re:Darn (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Basically the Tea Party says "if you jump down the abyss you'll find that at the bottom there are lots of money and ponies". As the abyss has not been jumped down, they will keep saying "but if they had jumped down the abyss, you would have found the money and the ponies. If there is a single unemployed american worker it is because they did not blindly followed our guidelines".
Being a demagogue is surprisingly easy, as you do not have to adapt to reality (you expect that reality will adapt to you). The easiest way to discredit them would be to given them power, but history shows how dangerous that can be...
Re:Darn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only easy while you're in the opposition. Once you're in power, it's extremely difficult to keep up the simplifications (populism) that sound so good to the people.
But as you say, history has shown that might not be a good idea. Make sure they're in a sort of coalition where they are the minority. In other words: if the republicans get to power, and the tea party is a minority group within the republicans, they'll be forced to be more reasonable.
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they will keep saying "but if they had jumped down the abyss, you would have found the money and the ponies. If there is a single unemployed american worker it is because they did not blindly followed our guidelines".
That's indeed exactly what they would say. Including the grammar errors.
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Re:Darn (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical tax and spend liberal
You see that? Tax AND spend. We call that fiscal responsibility. As opposed to the GOP, just spend plan that got us here. The VAST majority of the current debt has been rung up by the GOP and cleaning up the mess left to Obama by Bush. The numbers [whitehouse.gov] don't lie.
But go ahead and try to refute that...
Re:Darn (Score:5, Informative)
The rate at which the deficit is increasing has increased in each of Obama's THREE years in office
Very convenient to ignore my points...
Here's the rebuttal of yours:
Indeed, and why are those things increasing?
- Biggest recession since the great depression. So tax receipts are through the floor. Who caused that recession? Bush and GOP policies.
- A housing bubble pushed by Bush and the "Ownership society" and completely lax oversight. GOP loves to complain about restricting corporations so lets let them regulate themselves. Oops.
- lets not forget Sen GOP leader McConnell "My number one priority is to make sure Obama is not reelected." Not the country, not jobs...to make the president fail. Nice.
When you're in recession, nobody is spending. The only entity willing to spend is the government.
If consumers aren't spending and businesses aren't spending, what do you do? Just sit there and wait it out? Thus making it worse and longer to recover?
Or does the gov't spend money to stimulate the economy? That's called stimulus. The only thing that increases economic output is 'demand'. Tax cuts do not create demand. The stimulus we did have wasn't big enough, because as we're finding out the recession was actually bigger than it was originally estimated.
But keep drinking that Fox koolaid...
Re:Darn (Score:5, Insightful)
Who caused that recession? Bush and GOP policies.
The main culprit in the recession is not either of the parties, but rather the concept of "everyone should own their own home". Both parties had a hand in inflating the bubble, but ultimately it was our own unwillingness to believe that bad things could happen if we made it easier for more people to get a house.
I do think that GOP policies had a large part in driving up the national debt (tax cuts and two foreign adventures), but the Democrats are just as responsible for the policies that lead to the housing collapse.
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the Democrats are just as responsible for the policies that lead to the housing collapse
That is not true. Democrats insisted on regulations. Republicans removed them.
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The blame is easy: Alan Greenspan [nytimes.com] admitted to it. He took the blame.
The same Alan Greenspan who was buddies with Ayn Rand, who rubbed elbows with the GOP establishment and directed their policy. Both parties had a hand in the housing bubble, but if the financial markets were actually being regulated it wouldn't have blown up to the point of dragging down the entire economy.
“This modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades,” he said. “The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year.”
I think this is why the Tea Party came about. Intelligent conservatives came to the realization that they were wrong. George W. Bush pus
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No he didn't. Read the link you posted more carefully. He claimed that he was surprised that modern risk management didn't work, and that he played some small role. He said "Yes, I’ve found a flaw" in his ideology, which is very different from saying the he caused the entire thing, or is the main reason there was a bubble and financial collapse.
Greenspan left interest rates too low for at least 6 mos, and he didn't insis
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so far Obama's solution for getting out has amounted to: dig faster
No. His solution has been to save industries that provide jobs. The automakers are a good example. Right now economists are saying they expect the next infusion of money into the economy will be new car sales. If Obama had not saved the auto industry, and all of those jobs, how many of those economists would say that? I'll give you a hint. It is the same number you get when you calculate jobs created by trickle down economics.
Re:Darn (Score:5, Insightful)
nothing about your "tax and spend" mentality is inherently "fiscally responsible."
"tax and spend" is inherently more responsible than just "spend". You agree with at least that much yes?
Well, in a sane space - i.e., a rational person or institution - less would be spent than is taken in, to smooth out bumps in the future.
Which is what unemployment insurance explicitly does, yet the GOP decries this as freeloading when in fact those people actually paid for it already. Where your analogy breaks down is that you need to spend to have money coming in. During a recession, both consumers and businesses cut back. This further deepens the recession. What do you do? Just let it hit bottom hard and wait it out? Or do you step in and spend money, deficit spend, to increase demand and thus start economic recovery. Bonus if you have to spend that money anyway, two birds with one stone; i.e. 'infrastructure'.
Again, one party was in favor of this, one decried it.
Have both Dems and GOP been irresponsible? Sure. But one side has at least *tried* to pay for their programs. The GOP flatly has not paid for any of their tax cuts in any way. ("they'll pay for themselves!"). Magic Ponies indeed.
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(arguably a necessary parasite)
So you agree it has value since it is necessary.
The Democrats believe that it can grow to any size
As opposed to the GOP inspired Patriot Act, Homeland Security Agency behemoth, warrantless wiretaps, and TSA gropings? Who's idea were those massive increases in gov't size? And don't say 'they were necessary'. We say that Medicare and Social Security are 'necessary' too.
we will just keep taxing the people.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say either Fox or Limbaugh told you that right? The Dems have explicit said they want to tax incomes over $250k. I"m pretty sure that ain't you. I know
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The 'money and ponies' are also known as the 'Confidence Fairy'.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss# [nytimes.com]
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Re:Darn (Score:5, Informative)
without the Bush tax cuts or wars, we would be DEBT FREE right now. Literally. Not just deficit free but DEBT FREE.
Not true, the surpluses under Clinton were largely accounting games. When issue bonds, sell them to the SS trust fund, and then list them as an asset, that is not what most of us would call debt free.
I will grant the balance sheet was better under Clinton than under our two more resent presidents. We were running surpluses (even if they were smaller than popular reporting would have you think) and had we been able to keep all other things equal we would have paid down lots of but not all by any stretch the national debt.
9/11 may not have hapened under Gore (Score:3, Informative)
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Which was really stupid by Gore's campaign staff. They were the ones who convinced Gore to not have Clinton campaign too much on his behalf. Gore later admitted that it was a mistake and he shouldn't have listened to his staff.
Clinton's approval at the time was sky high. It really was an idiotic mistake not to use him.
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Are we talking about the CBO estimate that used figures from before the tech bubble destabilized(which it did well before the elections in 2000) and assumed cherries and pie growth for the next 10 years? That CBO estimate?
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Typical eurofags, dressed up in Hugo Boss and drove to Paris to go antiquing.
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We all had money riding on it, at least insofar as one can call our "Federal Reserve Notes" money.
Every dollar out there is fundamentally just an IOU to a private bank. Dollars are borrowed into existence.
The idea the US debt will ever stop increasing is exactly as realistic as the idea of the US Gov't getting rid of the "Federal Reserve."
Expected it to suck, and it did (Score:5, Interesting)
It was a fictitious crisis to start with, and none of the sides (Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party) acknowledge that. (The debt problems are real; the debt ceiling problems are strictly partisan argument.)
It still locks in most of the Bush Administration's radical increase in military spending, claiming to be making deep cuts, which are really just $40B/year over 10-12 years, which is about how much of an increase Obama had been asking for for this year's budget. It doesn't really address the Social Security demographic problems that are happening when the Boomers retire.
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Social Security is a forced tax to setup a retirement account for you, to help you keep living after retirement in the event that you did not plan ahead, or simply could not afford to do so.
Why should someone be forced to pay even more for other people's retirement, especially when they likely do not want or need it themselves?
Also, see JBMcB's post.
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> Are you saying that those who claim that Social Security entitlements must be reformed now are trying to default on the country's IOU's to the trust fund?
Not necessarily.
Social security is going to need more money than it's taking in. It has that money now, tied up in treasury bonds. The government is going to have to subsidize social security somehow. If you reform social security - reduce benefits, restructure payments, privatize chunks of it, whatever - you could reduce the amount needed to fund it