The Glade 4.0

No, it was not unavoidable. I don't think anyone disputes that the downgrade itself wasn't deserved. Still your position is basically that everyone except the Republicans are lying, including the agency itself that downgraded us.



These strawmans are getting ridiculous. The budget should be balanced, this is obvious, what's insane is the claim that we should do it without any tax increases.

Actually, a downgrade was unavoidable once S&P knew were going to break 100% of GDP in actual debt. And it was going to happen last week regardless of the outcome of the Debt Ceiling Debate. And it would have had happened had we passed a standard budget with a customary and silent increase.Actually, I think they're all lying because they all have a vested interest in lying. You keep buying into the false dilemma that you've created.

I don't support either party or any of our politicians individually for that matter. They're all "wrong" and have no business running a country.

Actually, what's insane is the claim that a country with our actual tax burden per citizen on this planet should even consider raising taxes. What's even more insane is this 20th Century, post-World War II delusion that individual income should be the primary revenue source for governments.

It makes you wonder how society and nations got through the last 6500 years of human history using excise taxes, tariffs, duties, and other such consumption based implements.

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Thanks, Midgen.

Translation: "The brinksmanship isn't the problem. The problem is that, even in the face of this extreme tactic, nothing of any substance was able to be agreed upon. If it was this hard to wrangle promises and vagaries about unspecified later action, there's no way that real progress will be made in the next 5 years, either."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

S&P stated outright before the downgrade that they would have maintained our rating had we cut $4 trillion in spending. You're saying they would have turned around and gone back on that?



It's really pretty obvious how 19th-century governments got by on only those. No standing army, no entitlement programs. I'm sure we could fund the government on only excise taxes, duties, and tariffs if we didn't have either of those.

I cannot really refute your tax claim because you understand the tax code much better than I do, but pretty much all mainstream sources claim that the US has one of the lowest tax burdens per individual of all first-world countries, not the highest. I understand the Heritage Foundation is fairly conservative, but even they rate the US tax burden as fairly low compared to other first world countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

According to this data, the US collects 26.9% of GDP in tax revenue. Compare that to 40.6% for Germany, 39% for the UK, 46% for France, 42.6% for Italy, and 36.8% for Israel. The Scandinavian countries, Belgium, and Denmark are also all above 45%. The US is only "high" when compared to areas that are well known to have tiny militaries and next to no entitlement programs, like Hong Kong and Singapore.

Never, ever look at tax revenues as a function of GDP and expect to arrive at a meaningful comparison. That's one of those horrible, horrible metrics to come out of Harvard in the middle-70s. And it should be abolished faster than white female slavery in a Super Max Men's prison.

Likewise, the Heritage Foundation's chart is sort of useful, in broad terms, but doesn't really tell you much about individual economic freedom.

Average U.S. income tax is around 30%.

Average U.S. Payroll tax is a total of 9%.

Average Sales Tax paid in the U.S. is 8%.

Just on the 3 most immediate taxes, the average tax rate is about 47% on every dollar spent. This doesn't include state income taxes where applicable or property, consumption (Gas, Cigarettes), and luxury taxes.

The U.S. gets huge points in the Heritage Foundation scoring for its corporate tax policy, but it's personal financial tax policy is tremendously unbalanced.

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No comment on the fact that S&P first reported the reason for lowing the credit rating was because the debt the US was in--only to find out they had a 2 trillion dollar math error.
They fixed the error, retracted the report, and then blamed the political climate in the revised report, but left the rating where they were?

Some have gone so far as to suggest that S&P is basically retaliating for the US Gov'ts report that blamed a huge part of the economic downturn on the fact that they were giving AAA ratings to various groups that were very obviously not sound investments.

interesting. And why the need to specify a skin color in this expression.....

I still want Khross to comment on if all these financial truths he spouts as absolute fact (which he's entitled to do, since we all do similarly) are the general consensus of the vast majority of the Economics world or just his school of thought? I'm not qualified to judge if he's a fringe economist or mainstream. (neither implies he's wrong. I'd just like to know so if say, I wanted to find a good work that explains the differences between his school of economics and some other, and the various pros and cons of each-- I could do so)

I am not mainstream. Why on earth would you even consider that? If I'm speaking about mainstream things in mainstream ways, I do so ...

See big replies to Montegue ...

When I'm talking about my own research and analysis and writing (which invariably gets published somewhere in a journal) ...

Then it's definitely not in mainstream camp: Krugman, Cowen, McArdle, et al, as far as commentary goes.

That said, I'm not mainstream because Classical Economics, Economic History, Political Economy, and von Mises are all extremely unpopular. Hayek and Rothbard still get decried; and, yet, nothing we're doing works or solves the problems that keep going forward.

By the by, best case scenario under current policy is a nearly 600% Debt to GDP ratio by 2025

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So, then change the corporate taxes to increase revenue. I am honestly more confused here because as I understood it the US corporate tax rate of 35% was actually extremely high compared to most other first-world nations.

I also can't understand how the GDP metric is so flawed that we actually have a higher tax burden than a country that has a 50% greater revenue to GDP ratio. Sure, the fact that the US government is spending so much more than it takes in will deflate the revenue as percentage of GDP number, but the UK is 13% higher than we are and has a similar level of debt. France is 20% higher and also has a public debt of about 85% of GDP. Japan has about double our debt burden and still has a higher revenue to GDP ratio.

"Female" is modifying "white slavery". "White" is not modifying "female slavery".

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Where are you getting this from? I haven't seen the actual Credit Watch report, but here's an article on it:



From the linked statement above from S&P:

Yeah, that's just lip service, Arathain. The United States as at a soon be greater than 100% of GDP level Debt Level ...

S&P was simply doing the inevitable; any political lip service is to obfuscate the fact that the United States Government is off the reservation and spending entirely too much **** money.

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Don't worry we can always print our way out...so sayth the sage Greenspan!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44051683

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

And in one more idiots response.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... t-sp-head/

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

So you think the timing was entirely fortuitous? That S&P would have downgraded the US in August of 2011 (give or take a few months) even if the Republicans had never made an issue out of raising the debt ceiling, even if they weren't so fundamentally unwilling to accept tax increases, and even if they cut a $4 trillion deficit-reduction deal along the lines of what Obama suggested?

And what was those 4 trillion in cuts that Obama proposed, I would like to read the specifics...oh wait. Sorry he just threw out numbers with no specifics that anyone can point too.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

According to the MPR Marketplace interview with the head of the S&P dept that did the rating, if we would have done the 4 trillion deal and raised the debt ceiling they wouldn't have downgraded the US.

Please. If the Democrats were lying about their offer, the Republicans would have called them out publicly on it.

The offer was there. They just didn't want it because it meant they had to break their ill advised campaign promise not to raise any taxes for any reason.


There are two types of lies.
Those that can be easily refuted.
Those that cannot be easily refuted.
Politicians love the second and avoid the first like the plague.

As long as you can spin or obfuscate the lie and make it seem potentially true then they go ahead and say it.

The lie you're accusing the Democrats/Obama of is of the easily refuted variety. Yet no one is refuting it.

I don't deny that politicians lie and spin, but in this case I place the lack of a sooner deal SOLIDLY on the head of the Tea Party whose freshman membership in the House prevented any sort of deal that included revenue increases.

This was a fantastic deal for Republicans-- they could have had almost everything they wanted in slashing gov't spending if they had been willing compromise on one issue.

They were unwilling, so the Democrats had to dig in their heels too, just so they dont look so weak and bullied.

In the end, the Democrats blinked, but I still blame the Tea Party-- its that sort of hard-line brinksmanship that collapses governments and starts wars.

When non-violent representation of ones constituents "collapses governments and starts wars", then pretty much those governments should have collapsed and those wars need to be fought.

I'm not one to call for revolution, but holding the line against further spending by whatever means necessary is something I applaud. If holding some feet to the fire is what it takes, I'll chip in for the matches.

I was incredibly surprised by the ratings cut, but I don't believe the US deserves a perfect rating with the present economic policies that are in place. Heck, we don't deserve AA as far as I'm concerned.

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In time, this too shall pass.

The Tea Party isn't holding the line against further spending. They're holding the line against higher taxes. They don't care about spending as long as taxes don't go up. The majority of even the Tea Party wants to keep SS and Medicare intact, and I highly doubt the TP is one to propose cutting military spending.

You keep mentioning this deal that no one can show me.

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The tea party passed up greater spending cuts in return for no taxes.

In short- no there has been nothing in writing. So RD my next question- why is there no proposal in writing by the democrats? Can you give an explanation that makes more sense then the idea of "they didn't want to get held to making a decision."?


The Democrats are obstructionist in this. Obama and the Democrats are desperate to share the failure of the current administrations policies with the Tea Party and the Republicans. They are not about doing what is right for the country, they just want to have the least amount of #### on them come election time. If the Democrats sling more feces then they already have on them, they may seem like an actual choice come elections.

They had the supermajority and the presidency. They had the "blue ribbon" panel tell them exactly what to do. And not a single #### was given by them. They drove the car back into the ditch, drove another car right on top of it, and set fire to the pile.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

You're claiming the Dems were obstructionist for rejecting a plan that was spending cuts only? As in, if they don't give the other side everything they want, they're obstructionist? What did the Republicans compromise on in any of the bills that were passed by the House? Oh that's right, nothing.