Biden administration planning to spend $3 trillion more

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by kazenatsu, Mar 22, 2021.

  1. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    We might as sell the status for 50 trillion injected into our economy since USA currency will be supplanted by cryptocurrency within 20 years anyway
     
  2. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    Everyone except the super rich. The centralization of power to the few isn't worth the temporary economic benefits that might be obtained from it.

    If I have to choose between a government run monopoly of business or a corporate monopoly of business, I'd choose the one I have a democratic say in. Yes, socialism is better than a corporatocracy. It is better than oligarchy.

    It is best we just avoid the monopolizing of power as corporations continue to gobble up everything by exponentially taxing income growth as it reaches unrealistic levels.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not sure you directly answered my question. Let me try asking it again in a different way: How does the concept of "pulling down the rich" directly economically benefit the poor?

    You brought up big corporations and monopolies, but that does not exactly directly have to do with the subject of what we are talking about, they are not the same thing.
     
  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So what do you think would happen if everyone around the world started dumping the US dollar in favor of cryptocurrency?

    That's going to make it a whole lot more difficult for the US economy to keep up this charade, don't you think?
     
  5. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    It doesn't unless you use the money for better internet access and solar panels to reduce power bills. Anything that provides a long term benefit for their success.

    It's not the only factor to be considering though. I think we need to consider all factors when making these decisions not just the ones that you believe support your positions.
     
  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay, so you concede that "pulling down the rich" does not economically provide a benefit to the poor, at least not a direct benefit (other than of course using that money).
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  7. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    People will dump the dollar anyway because the USA has already proven they cannot be trusted. We are past fixing it. Technology will prevail over US policy and we should make the best of it.

    Of course not. It would likely have a negative impact temporarily instead, since they are pulling money out of the economy that could be spent to produce more things and thereby keep more jobs.
    It can only have a positive impact if it is spent better than the rich would have spent it. Which congress cannot seem to do these days. We need a more Eisenhower approach like building dams but a more modern approach, maybe nuclear or solar, internet etc..
     
  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Don't you think this will create strong inflationary pressures in the future?
    Is it really such a good idea to be expanding the money supply so much now?
     
  9. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    If Americans and American businesses move to crypto now, it will help later. It will be worth more later. Also, if we wait to spend the worthless dollars after they become worthless, we won't be able to get as far with them. It needs to happen now. We will have inflation because of what has happened already and if we stop, the economy will collapse. It will be really bad. We have to keep spending, and get away from the dollar.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think your logic on this is very parochial (you're not able to see the overall big picture).

    It seems your mentality is basically just "destroy and move onto something else".

    When you grab all the wealth from rich people and spend it, what's going to happen then?

    This is not long-term sustainable type of thinking.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  11. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    Even if you stopped all spending and started raising taxes to insane heights, it might not be enough to reverse this debt bubble. We cannot pay it off. Lets not waste 'real wealth' trying to fix something that cannot be fixed. It should have happened during Trump. Now its too late. Best to put our wealth in things that will keep the inevitable from completely washing us away.

    I would never support grabbing 'all' the wealth from the rich. I only support a 'soft cap' on the wealth and what they can earn. This isn't to pay off the debt though. This is just to limit their power and keep monopolies from forming. It also protects new and small businesses.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
  12. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So even though you admit that we will never be able to pay off all the debt, you still support Biden's immense deficit spending?
    "Just piling a little more onto that massive pile of debt we will never be able to repay"

    I'm sorry but something is wrong with that picture.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2021
  13. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    It isn't possible to pay it off even if we stopped spending.

    Of course if it were possible to pay it off, I would support it. I just don't support the impossible or highly improbable. Instead, I support making the best of a bad situation.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2021
  14. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    The current deficit is about $2 trillion so before a penny is available to 'pay down' debt, the nation would first need to balance the budget. This can be achieved by raising taxes, lowering expenses, or some of both. I suspect no one will go along with tax increases for the purpose of paying down debt. So the only option to reduce debt is to reduce spending. And it's an impossible option because reducing government spending by $2 trillion will lead to the loss of approximately 20 million US jobs! This is assuming average job is $100K.

    Now for those who want to pay down debt, and let's say $1 trillion per year, maybe people will go along with small tax increases so I'll guess they would still need about $750 billion which can come from reduced spending and/or an economy on steroids that would create $750 billion in additional tax revenue each year (highly unlikely!) So another $750 billion in reduced spending means another 7.5 million Americans lose their jobs.

    In what possible scenario can the US economy tolerate the loss of 27.5 million American jobs so that over a 20 year time frame the US can pay down $20 trillion of it's debt?? It can't happen! To pay down a single penny of debt requires the loss of 20 million US jobs. It can't happen! To reduce the annual deficit by $1 trillion is the loss of 10 million jobs...it can't happen!

    The debt and deficit spending problems in the US are so enormous or horrific or reckless or whatever word one wishes to use, leaving few to no options to correct. The efficiency of how government spends their trillion$ is surely horrible but there is no fix for this as well. Most state governments are near broke or in debt and their only money teat is the federal government. Many of our large municipal areas are also near broke or in debt and they depend on their state governments which depend on the federal government.

    Everything I mention above is why your politicians NEVER talk about reducing debt or deficit spending...
     
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  15. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, but what do you call something that is clearly not sustainable in the long-term?

    You're saying "we can't do it", but it's also true we can't go on deficit spending forever either. There will come a day of reckoning.

    Logic tells us that the only way it makes sense to keep putting it off is if we expect much better times to come in the future, where it will become easier to pay it off later.
    But this is the thinking of an addict.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2021
  16. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Debt is sustainable as long as the debt can be serviced.

    The focus should not be on debt but on why the spending is necessary. What is the downside of not spending? If you lived pay check to pay check, with no savings, and you suddenly needed $5000 to fix your broken car, knowing you and your family's life depends on this transportation, and you have a credit card good for $5000, would you go into debt to fix your car and to sustain your life? Now multiply this by 325 million US citizens in which some form of forward movement is required...a recession or depression is not acceptable!

    Bottom line IMO; many Americans, and many US businesses, and many state and local governments, all teeter on the brink of financial ruin. If a government can help mitigate this during uncertain times...is there any other choice?
     
  17. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Is that debt grows greater and greater it will become harder and harder to service that debt.

    There's also the looming risk that interest rates could dramatically increase at some point in the future, which would make that debt non-serviceable in short order.

    You can't get something for nothing. That's a basic rule of economics. Who do you think is going to pay for it, or when are we going to pay for it?

    This mentality you are espousing is completely non-logical. Seems your type just doesn't want to deal with the problem, which might lead to a disaster at some point in the future.

    If you ran your own personal finances like you think government finances should be run, what would happen? We all know the answer to that.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021
  18. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In other words, transfer the liability to the government.

    You're not solving the problem, you're just moving it.

    If these businesses wanted protection, they should have bought private insurance to deal with the risk.

    You cannot use government to eliminate economic uncertainty in the individual business environment.
    That is the whole purpose of private business. No one can predict exactly what will happen or where investments should be made, so investors have to risk their own money. Ideally the perceived risk will help them know how to best allocate the money.
    If you take away that risk, you're also going to take away the incentive for investments to be properly allocated.

    Yes there is another choice. Let those businesses fail, and some other investors will come in and buy those bankrupt businesses for cheap.

    As for local governments, let them fail. If it could happen to a local government, why don't you think it could happen to the federal government bailing them out?
    The huge irony is they would not have "failed" if it was not for accumulating debts, yet that is something you advocate.

    Any local government that goes bankrupt is very likely to do so again, after you bail them out. The problem is mismanagement, something that's not going to go away just because you throw some more money at it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021
  19. GrayMan

    GrayMan Well-Known Member

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    They do. It's the insurance companies that cannot make the payments because the insurance itself let's the companies avoid risk. The insurance handle payments for the losses of a few companies at a time, but during an economic collapse, to many companies and individuals default and insurance companies cannot cover the loss.


    They don't have insurance for covid and for government oppression by forcing them to shut down.

    In any case, if government pulled back now, there would be an economic collapse and the government will just lose more income due to the lost jobs and dead businesses. It would just be deconstructive to stop spending at this point.

    It is too late. We can only delay the death of the dollar, not stop it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021
  20. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then maybe government should offer an insurance plan, and charge a fair price - what a private company would charge to assume that level of expected risk.

    That's the argument, but I'd like to see some actual precise logic or mathematics to back that argument up.
    Whether government spending here will really improve things overall.

    What exactly makes you think the "economic collapse" will be greater than the spending cost to avoid this collapse?

    That sounds incredibly fatalistic. If the US wants to prevent the death of the dollar, they can start by not spending money they don't have.
    Dealing with foreign trade deficits would be next on the list.

    Yeah, but at this rate, with total all out failure to address those two things, death of the dollar will be an eventual inevitability.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
  21. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    This is all nonsense...and your personal attacks ARE NOT amusing.

    Private business never runs like public business??

    Who cares if debt service becomes 'harder and harder'??

    When is the last time interest rates were too high??

    Taxpayers pay for everything!!

    I explained in detail why debt and deficit spending won't be dealt with in the near future. All you do is diatribe...
     
  22. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH $22 TRILLION OF DEBT ACCEPT TO TALK ABOUT IT!! If you think you have answers then let's hear them!

    Government manages the economy every second of every day...are you not from Earth?

    It's easy for you to say let 'others' just fail but you IGNORE the downside risks of YOUR OWN failure by doing nothing.

    You are clueless about government...you are clueless about the reality...you are closed-minded...
     
  23. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The latest news: The Biden Administration will be proposing an "Infrastructure Plan" spending 3 to 4 trillion dollars.
    Except what's actually in this "infrastructure" plan is almost everything except real infrastructure.

    According to the New York Times, Biden's three big spending plans add up to $6 trillion.
    (NY Times article: "Here's a Guide to Biden's Three Big Spending Plans -- worth about $6 Trillion", Glenn Thrush, April 28, 2021)

    It points out the "American Rescue Plan", $1.9 trillion, "The American Jobs Plan", $2.3 trillion, "The American Families Plan", $1.8 trillion.

    President Biden is probably not the actual one writing up these spending plans, right now Susan Rice is the one directly handling domestic policy in the White House. She used to be the right hand assistant to Obama.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2021
  24. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    LOL!!!! Hyperbole much? An annual 5% increase in spending is going to bankrupt us?? That's what the $3.5 trillion BBBA is. 5% more.

    And remember, multiple studies show that $1 spent on unemployment compensation to a person who is sitting at home, parlays into $1.40 in the economy because of spending, consumption, increased demand, increased production, etc. etc. So just imagine what this BBBA will do for the economy when it is spent on purchase of products, paychecks for productive people, etc.
     
    Last edited: Oct 22, 2021

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