1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.
  2. We've had very few donations over the year. I'm going to be short soon as some personal things are keeping me from putting up the money. If you have something small to contribute it's greatly appreciated. Please put your screen name as well so that I can give you credit. Click here: Donations
    Dismiss Notice

The Debt Ceiling

Discussion in 'Tilted Philosophy, Politics, and Economics' started by Baraka_Guru, Aug 2, 2011.

  1. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    There's a debt ceiling bill. It's going to a vote a noon today. It's expected to pass.

    Below are the details.

    What do you think?

    To me, it seems convoluted and leaves the door open for more politicking—which means, as has been indicated already, that Republicans will have more chances to get what they want.

    What are the short-term consequences of this plan?

    What are the long-term consequences?

    What are the political consequences on both sides of the aisle?

    What's the Tea Party going to do?

    [​IMG]

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14371097
     
  2. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    My politics don't normally agree with most of the people who used to be on the TF - but, I really hope that the next election "retires" a whole bunch of politicians - including a half-assed excuse for a president. In my opinion, the only people who deserve to be re-elected are the "Tea Party" people for having the guts to vote the way they promised they would to get elected.
     
  3. samcol

    samcol Getting Tilted

    Location:
    indiana
    Yeah, I think it leaves a ton of room for politicking. I really don't like the sound of 'super congress.' It doesn't sound constitutional. The other legislators wont be allowed to amend the bills at all or filibuster, and they dont have to follow standard committee procedures. Also, they can apparently sneak anything else they want in it.

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/super-congress-to-target-second-amendment.html
    --- merged: Aug 2, 2011 2:48 PM ---
    This is the crisis they need to hold the congress hostage, a very few people are going to make some huge decisions. Don't be surprised if they sneak anti gun legislation, carbon taxes, or other nonsense into this debt bill.
     
  4. You pose some interesting questions. I think the answer about the short term consequences is where the bill is useful. It really minimizes any short term consequences where as if there was no bill there would be devastating immediate consequences. Now in the long run I think it hurts the dollar as we have borrowed even more money. I think now that this is done we have to take our debt seriously just like the average American. We have to start balancing the budget and paying down our debt. It will take sacrifice from every American.
     
  5. Derwood

    Derwood Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    It's too bad they don't understand how democracy works. Democracy is not about sticking to your guns at all costs. It's about debate and compromise and coming to a consensus. Taking your ball and going home is bush league
     
  6. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    I'm not so sure about this. One of the weaknesses of the democratic process is that those who participate in it directly don't need to worry about consensus among the wider public; they only need to worry about the consensus among their particular voters.

    This is painfully clear in what's essentially a two-party system. Why compromise when you can just poise yourself for your next run on power?
     
  7. Ice|Burn

    Ice|Burn Getting Tilted

    That's exactly the problem we had here. Everyone on both sides was too busy trying to figure out how to make this look good for their reelection campaign. I so sick of this hyper polarized view that has taken hold in this country. If you're a republican and you don't hold the exact same ultra conservative view points then you're a traitor and not a true member of the cause. The same thing goes for the democrats too. It's amazing anything gets done in DC with attitudes and mindsets such as these. Maybe I'm just an ignorant fool, but it seems to me there has got to be a better way of governing that doesn't (in this case) include taking our economy out behind the wood shed and shooting it in the head.
     
  8. Derwood

    Derwood Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    I'm talking about how politics worked for the first 150ish years of this country's existence. The last 30ish years have been partisan bullshit
     
  9. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Oh, those bygone days.

    I suppose the problem is the right is trying to get "righter" and the "left" is trying to hold onto the centre.

    Yeah, I suppose times have changed.
     
  10. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    compromise is spelled wrong.
    the word is: capitulation.

    i don't regard this farce as in itself particularly significant, even as the consequences of things going south would have been quite dire. it's more a symptom of a general ideological/cognitive crisis. the economic model that's been so dominant in the united states for 30 years that it doesn't even have a consistent name is finished. but it is has become the lingua franca for transmitting infotainment for nearly as long. the downside of ideological hegemony---particularly in a context of fading empire--is the elimination of alternatives. the consequences of an almost authoritarian information context are now playing themselves out. the tea party is merely an obvious symptom--wedded to an ultra-orthodox version of a bankrupt ideology, committed to the surreal idea that their collective commitment to the outmoded somehow makes the outmoded other than it is...

    there are many many things i dislike about the obama administration---but perhaps the thing i dislike most is their willingness, again and again, to cede framing of issues to the right. this has consequences. it boxes in both thinking and the ability to make arguments, so both policy and its packaging. and in this particular context, shaped by the political crisis of empire put into motion by the invasion of iraq and debacle that followed it, and economic crisis triggered by the derivatives bubble---that in any rational world would have pulled down the neo-liberal psychosis that enabled it---the consequences in this particular context can disastrous.

    i've said elsewhere: it is well past time that the people who defend this neo-liberal psychosis get placed on the defensive. they need to be forced to defend the record of failure that their policies have engendered. running away into metaphysics should not be an option. the reason the right media apparatus is geared around supporting the flight into metaphysics is that they know---and i think they know this as individuals---that the right cannot defend its record, that this needs to be avoided at all costs. and they'll bring down the sinking ship of empire to maintain their positions as viable political actors.
     
  11. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    This same attitude toward politics worked for several hundred years for the Roman Empire - then... they farmed out their jobs - let someone else do it .... borrowed too much, got fat and lazy, and POOF! They were gone. If we continue in the direction we are going.... POOF! We're gonna' be gone. Perhaps both of the current parties have outlived whatever usefulness they had in the past... perhaps in the same way unions have. This country has got to change. Campaign promises have got to be exactly that - PROMISES! Not something you say today and blow off when you get to DC! Let me quote an ex-Senator that you are probably familiar with. This quote goes much farfther in explaining what is wrong with our government right now than I ever could:

    “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America ‘s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America ‘s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, “the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”


    – Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006 —
     
  12. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    liquor dealer--what on earth are you talking about? the roman empire was structured in a fundamentally different manner than was the united states. are you talking about the military? you have to be for your scenario resulting "poof" to make any sense at all. no-one actually has a super-coherent understanding of how the roman empire imploded. some think it was the lead-based sweetener everyone used in the wine. maybe that's the equivalent of american corporate television? as for debt--i haven't any idea what you're talking about or what it could be based on. you want a problem with cash-flows--look at 16th-18th century spain. they went poof! but not for reasons that say anything about the united states now.

    one thing that is characteristic of the end of empires historically--with lots of variation of course---is a general unhinging from reality that seems to grip the population, as if decline is an unspeakable possibility. so they population renders themselves helpless in the face of it. they commit to stupid ideas because they're reassuring. metaphysical. like this entire neo-liberal/monetarist idiocy about debt. maybe it's the tea party that's the canary in the mineshaft, the movement of the unhinged who run away like lemmings en masse from a reality that scares them but which their politics give them no hope of comprehending.
     
  13. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    Sometime when you have a wee bit of spare time try "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". Then we'll talk.
     
  14. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    It should be pointed out that the U.S. situation isn't anywhere near the worst debt situation in the world. It just might seem that way when looking at debt as a total sum.

    Look at Japan, for example.

    You know what's more important than the debt level? Future earnings.
     
  15. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    gibbons? actually, i've read it.
    what do you want to talk about?
    remember when it was written, yes?
    so you know, i've also been relegated to teaching courses about the roman empire, so am familiar with history more recent than the late 18th century.
    but gibbon's quaint.

    the closest parallel to the situation of the united states from the inside (that is, not focused on structures ex post) is probably robert musil's "man without qualities." the us could well go the way of the hapsburgs.

    we should consider another thread if we want to play this game, though. it'd entirely derail this one.
     
  16. Aceventura

    Aceventura Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    North Carolina
    I think this compromise solution is not a solution to anything at all. I think those in Washington who talk the loudest about "compromise" don't understand what real compromise is. In this situation no participant was satisfied with the solution agreed to, and this is going to lead to on-going conflict regarding the underlying issues. It appears as if no participant really bought into the solution agreed upon. So, basically they "kicked the can down the road", exactly what Obama said he did not want. The fight on spending, budgets, deficits, taxation will get worse before it gets better. Real compromise involves participants with differences sit down, talk, understand and address those differences to arrive at a solution where the participants walk away with buy-in.

    Those that participated in setting up this deal did not serve the American people. Congress and the President should be embarrassed by how they handled this manufactured crisis.
     
  17. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    Future earning........... that would mean business needs to prosper. Now, should they prosper here? or maybe somewhere else. Maybe, according to some, we can TAX our way back to prosperity. Now, I realize I'm perhaps a bit naive about some things - but I have yet to figure out just how that works. I think this country is in the process of tearing itself apart. A lot of people could care less if California and the rest of the tree huggers fell off the face of the earth. Is Texas the only place in the US that believes government should be accountable to the people and not to a political party? Is Texas the only place left that believes that when business is making money everyone is making some too?
     
  18. Ice|Burn

    Ice|Burn Getting Tilted

    I've not read this, but I suspect i know what it's about. I've been saying for several years now that we (the US) are on very similar path the lead to the end of the Roman Empire. Although something tells the our fall when it happens will be much more spectacular.
     
  19. roachboy

    roachboy Very Tilted

    as an aside, i should say that i'm entirely in agreement about the end of empire scenario---that's likely where we are---but am not at all in agreement about causes or potential outcomes.

    what i'm particularly interested in is the ideological/cognitive paralysis that seems to be of a piece with the collapse (or decline) of empire in an ideological context that does not allow for it to be even acknowledged, much less acted upon. i've been writing about this for a while now. it's interesting. scary too.

    thing is that i see this decline of empire as not at all a bad thing necessarily--one of the primary results of the american empire has been almost continuous war since 1945, a grotesque expansion of the military-industrial structure, the systematic marginalization of the left, the development of a soft-authoritarian media context--not a bit of which is either desirable or necessary. losing the imperial status could make life for most people far better, if it eliminates the reliance on the production of weapons and surveillance systems to prop up the economy in the reagan mode unnecessary/impossible. but that will only happen if there is a serious and sustained confrontation with the right and a demolition of it's ideological hegemony.

    letting the right run the show will make the decline as bad as it could possibly be. they've proven themselves specialists in the creation of unnecessary problems around the world since the 1980s. last thing anyone in their right mind would want is for the right to turn its special brand of disaster generation on the united states to an even greater extent than they already have. hell, engineering the largest transfer of wealth away from the majority of the population and into the hands of the top 5% in terms of wealth---who have, in the main, not done any of the things conservative ideology promised---which undermines any ethical justification for that ideology--is already a considerable disaster for most of us. and there are more consequences of the application of neo-liberal ideology that are disastrous....the "globalization" of the us industrial base---who the fuck has that benefited apart from the holders of capital? want to explain unemployment? but conservatives have only bland handwaving as a response to that. tax cuts. more of the same nonsense that generated the present situation. it's a problem.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  20. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    So? You just prefer to let the left give it away like they've been doing? Am I missing something from you very articulate rhetoric?