Sure - they lost seats and more people voted for Dems than the GOP, but yes, they ended up with more seats. But if you want to try to pretend the GOP won on this issue despite all the extensive polling and the overall election results, you certainly can do so. Not true - plenty of GOPers have already stated that if the Senate bill were put up for a vote in the House, they would vote for it and it would pass overwhelmingly. The Speaker simply won't put it up for a vote.
Yes, I did know that. And you know what that means? That it can't pay all of the projected benefits - by your numbers, 20% of the projected benefits. That means, by definition, it will be insolvent (aka bankrupt) under current expectations. You can either fix it now with minor changes, or blow it up entirely later. It's true that I've fallen for facts and math instead of living in fantasy land. If you believe this, it sounds to me like you don't remotely actually know what's in either of these bills. Notice your "started in motion". Obama started in motion a total redesign of the health care system too - but to you, that's small peanuts because he didn't do everything. Nice sliding expectations there. Based on your standards, every Democratic President in US history was a cautious moderate. No different than Tea Partiers thinking every Republican President is not a true conservative.
These guys are great. We're about to adversely affect the US economy and we're all in Washington and its Friday. Hmmm...lets meet at 3 pm?! I think their income should be cut as part of the measures of the 'fiscal cliff' until they're able to do their job. That would speed things up and stop the petty brinkmanship on both sides.
Who comes up with these ****ing names? That's the guy who needs his ass beat, it's all doom and gloom.
The President didn't sound optimistic. At least they may force a vote. Politics is disgusting. No Republican can break from the leadership, or they will face a primary battle and get their funding cut.
Whether it's the President's plan, or a Reid/McConnell plan, I suspect something will pass the Senate Sunday, and it's going to force the House into a position of accepting it or being 100% responsible for going over the cliff. Will be interesting to see what happens there and if Boehner even allows a vote.
Short term, this seems like yet another punt to delay pain, but I wonder how our credit rating and investor confidence will fare in its aftermath.
Just because we've won the prize for least ugly in the beauty pageant doesn't mean parliamentary instability won't factor into investor confidence in the long run. It's a cumulative eyesore that I'd rather not have and one that can be realistically fixed out of all of our structural shortfalls.
I personally don't think so, and that just has to do with how the financial system is constructed. It's essentially an American-dominated system. The moment faith in capitalism and open markets diminishes is the point where American yields will suffer, but not before then. As it is, finance students are ingrained to view Treasuries as "risk-free". It'll take more than a downgrade or two to change that.
Yep. Europe is in a bigger mess, Japan is still in deflation. Even if you don't think my argument holds water, yours still will in that time frame. As much as America is in a hole, most alternatives are in even deeper holes. If you'd said 40 years, I might have had to reconsider my answer, but again, this is something that will come slower than a downgrade or two.
Given more gov. deadlock and trillion dollar budgets, it's not a particular argument I want to be right in... Pardon me for thinking this will accelerate the emergence of other nations and their growing frustration of the American controlled economic system.
Investor "confidence" as an important variable or consideration as to how run economic and political policy is a big problem. Screw investor confidence; rebuild the economy by giving the 99% more money to spend and spur the economy. With the horrible concentration of wealth, even more so among investable wealth, we have the same group that buys our politicians pouting in the market. It is then reported on by the oligarchis who own the media as a crisis when all that has happened is that they might not get their way on reduced taxes for them or reduction in Social Security or Medicare for the rest.
Well, for starters, approximately 50% of the country are "investors" - so you're hurting 49% of the 99% by screwing investor confidence. And second, losing investor confidence means higher interest rates, which means the government pays more for the debt it borrows, which means less money for the government to spend on anything else - whether it be good stuff or bad stuff. In then end, your 99% loses. You again seem more interested in punishing the people you hate than helping the people you care about.
