1 minute ago, Dave Moss said:

Remember when they caught Cesar Sayoc and this was what he was driving:

 

The feds planted those stickers!

1 hour ago, downundermike said:

I am sure it does to the average kmart employee.  Those of us with a college education have no problem understanding it.

Whoa, you have a college degree!? That's amazing, dude. Congrats.

1 hour ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Whenever the fascists attempt to topple our democracy, this is what the reply will be from a significant portion of the country. Our republic's last gasp will be preceded by one large, collective  "Whatabout BLM!"

Yeah, those Trump supporters really came close to toppling democracy. There's no telling how long a group of 60 year old, unarmed, MAGA boomers could have held onto the full power of the federal government. A decade? 20 years? We were so close! 

 

11 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Yeah, those Trump supporters really came close to toppling democracy. There's no telling how long a group of 60 year old, unarmed, MAGA boomers could have held onto the full power of the federal government. A decade? 20 years? We were so close! 

 

Jared Hunter Adams, 26

Eduardo Nicolas Alvear Gonzalez, 32

Thomas Adams Jr, 39

Daniel Page Adams, 43

Howard Berton Adams Jr., 60 ( finally found one )

Zachary Jordan Alam, 29

Christopher Michael Alberts, 33

I mean, I could keep going all day, but I don't need to.  Wrong again.

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases

3 minutes ago, downundermike said:

Jared Hunter Adams, 26

Eduardo Nicolas Alvear Gonzalez, 32

Thomas Adams Jr, 39

Daniel Page Adams, 43

Howard Berton Adams Jr., 60 ( finally found one )

Zachary Jordan Alam, 29

Christopher Michael Alberts, 33

I mean, I could keep going all day, but I don't need to.  Wrong again.

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases

Physically painful.

19 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Physically painful.

Stop being wrong all the time, it will hurt less.

57 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Physically painful.

More self owning from the king. Kz never misses when it come to making himself look like an idiot.

1 hour ago, Kz! said:

Whoa, you have a college degree!? That's amazing, dude. Congrats.

Show some respect to your intellectual betters Kz.

1 minute ago, Gannan said:

Show some respect to your intellectual betters Kz.

And yes, that includes that homeless dude living under the bridge, Kz.

Kind of torn on this one. On the one hand, it sounds absolutely batish insane. On the other, I can't question the man's knowledge of Alzheimer's, he's definitely an authority on the subject. 

Quote

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden plans to meet with Republicans next week after a group of GOP senators pitched a fresh offer on a major new infrastructure plan, but warned that the window for a deal will shut soon, with Republicans still over $1 trillion short of the White House’s latest proposal.

"We’re going to have to close this down soon,” Biden said of talks with Republicans, speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One to travel to Cleveland for a speech on the economy. He said he briefly spoke Thursday with Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who’s been leading the Republican counter-proposals, and plans to meet with her "sometime next week.”

Capito said after the brief call, "I got clear direction from him so that was good. Keep moving forward.” She said Biden did not outright reject the GOP’s latest offer while noting Biden "doesn’t want to drag this on forever.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that Republicans would send further details on their proposal later in the day. Biden told Capito that he will then respond, according to Psaki.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said earlier that his party could go beyond the revised infrastructure-spending offer it released Thursday morning.

 

joe is trying so hard to work with the do-nothing repugs to build this country back better. idk if even joe can get them off their obstructionist arses to actually do something to help the country...but god love him for trying!    

 

i only hope they can pump joe full of enough formaldehyde to run again in 2024!  go joe!!! 

Inflation running rampant? Perfect time to announce a 6 trillion dollar budget.  

 

Our country is lead by the dumbest people on the planet.   

2 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Our country is lead by the dumbest people on the planet.   

Our country WAS lead by the dumbest people on the planet, but 81,268,924 spoke on November 3rd and fixed that.

7 minutes ago, downundermike said:

Our country WAS lead by the dumbest people on the planet, but 81,268,924 spoke on November 3rd and fixed that.

This is your most compelling argument to date. Still, 6 trillion with inflation already devaluing our currency. What could go wrong, right?

1 hour ago, Kz! said:

This is your most compelling argument to date. Still, 6 trillion with inflation already devaluing our currency. What could go wrong, right?

If you care about the deficit, why not a peep from you when it grew by over 7 trillion?

1 hour ago, Kz! said:

This is your most compelling argument to date. Still, 6 trillion with inflation already devaluing our currency. What could go wrong, right?

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.

21 minutes ago, downundermike said:

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.

 

13 hours ago, Boogyman said:

If you care about the deficit, why not a peep from you when it grew by over 7 trillion?

 

13 hours ago, downundermike said:

The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.

The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.

Trump’s inability to reign in spending was the greatest failure of his presidency. Now that we’ve gotten orange man bad out of the way, Biden and the Dems are complete and total morons for this, right?

I don't profess to really know much in-depth about macroeconomics and how the national debt works. All I know is that, we've been hearing the doomsdayers rail about the debt for over 20 years now, and the disaster has yet to accrue. The dollar is still the strongest currency in the world. Can someone actually explain in reality when and how this debt crisis will unfold?

2 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

I don't profess to really know much in-depth about macroeconomics and how the national debt works. All I know is that, we've been hearing the doomsdayers rail about the debt for over 20 years now, and the disaster has yet to accrue. The dollar is still the strongest currency in the world. Can someone actually explain in reality when and how this debt crisis will unfold?

I'm no economist, but as far as I understand it, it has something to do with the letter next to the President's name.  The physical properties of a D are very different from an R and they have a much more perilous effect on debt spending.  It's science. 

3 hours ago, Kz! said:

 

Trump’s inability to reign in spending was the greatest failure of his presidency. Now that we’ve gotten orange man bad out of the way, Biden and the Dems are complete and total morons for this, right?

  Yeah, he tried so hard.  Almost got there, but came up just short.  I wouldn't worry about it, he'll get it figured out in his next term.

3 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

I don't profess to really know much in-depth about macroeconomics and how the national debt works. All I know is that, we've been hearing the doomsdayers rail about the debt for over 20 years now, and the disaster has yet to accrue. The dollar is still the strongest currency in the world. Can someone actually explain in reality when and how this debt crisis will unfold?

Nobody knows for sure.

In terms of just the debt, it's not something you can readily compare to a household budget. The numbers are big and scary for sure, but the rates are so low that comparing it to the burden of credit card debt is just fear mongering. It's not that it isn't a problem, it's just comparably not nearly as bad as having a huge credit card debt. For one, the debt doesn't grow continuously based on interest rates - it's capped whenever the security matures. So if I buy a 10-year note, after 10 years it's done growing. So if I use $10k to buy a 10-year note, and after 10 years it's worth $10.5k, that's the total obligation the gov't has to me. So the borrowing, from the gov'ts standpoint, is incredibly cheap and nowhere near comparable to a household budget.

But the most obvious problem to me is that because we're addicted to spending way more than we are willing to tax (or be taxed), that means we have to sell a lot of treasury notes. This assumes that there is a demand FOR these notes. The demand has been steady, but yields being so low means the reason the demand is still there is faith in the US. Electing morons like Trump don't help that, but that's a separate discussion. 

This also handcuffs the fed a bit on rates. If the fed raises interest rates, those treasure notes become more attractive to buy ... but it also means they're more expensive to pay back later. 

So when the fed eventually raises rates, the borrowing is not so cheap. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the cost of carrying this debt is not onerous. But the higher the rate goes the more painful paying them back will be. 

Our budget has a ton of mandatory spending. There isn't THAT much discretionary spending to cut. This means that eventually we WILL need to raise taxes, or we may risk defaulting.

This is why the tax cut act under Trump was so utterly irresponsible. Because it cut taxes, thereby reducing revenue, but did not make any spending cuts. All during a time of economic expansion, which is when we should be taking advantage of a strong economy to keep the deficit low. That gives us more flexibility when there's an economic contraction (or so says Keynesian theory, which is more or less baked in to our federal gov'ts economic policies). 

COVID hit, and this compounded the stupid laws passed. The federal government HAD to spend money, after already running up the deficit. 

The COVID relief bill earlier this year should have put more austere parameters around some of the worker benefits, at least as part of some escalator tied to economic indicators, to help keep the cost of that bill lower. It was still a good bill to pass, in particular the relief it gave to state budgets who were getting crushed and do not have the ability to raise funds through selling of bonds like the federal gov't does. But given that the economy and job market are stabilizing, the gov't should start getting out of the way and let it rebound without interfering.

The big worry right now is around inflation concerns. Given how low inflation has been for the last 15-20 years, we have a bit of room, but I also think they need to adjust the way inflation is measured. I suspect we might have a year with 4% inflation in the next few. But as long as it reigns back in a bit and stays in the 2.75-3.25% range on average we should be in ok shape there. But we've printed a HELLUVA lot of money. 

4 hours ago, Kz! said:

 

Trump’s inability to reign in spending was the greatest failure of his presidency. Now that we’ve gotten orange man bad out of the way, Biden and the Dems are complete and total morons for this, right?

Well I never mentioned the Orange Man, I asked why you didn't make a peep about it in the past, but now it's a huge deal to you.

I am against overspending no matter who is in office. I do know the country needs major infrastructure overhauls almost across the board and it's been talked about since I was a kid. It seems every administration just kicks the can further down the road for the next.

4 hours ago, Kz! said:

 

Trump’s inability to reign in spending was the greatest failure of his presidency. Now that we’ve gotten orange man bad out of the way, Biden and the Dems are complete and total morons for this, right?

Also:

 

1 hour ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

I don't profess to really know much in-depth about macroeconomics and how the national debt works. All I know is that, we've been hearing the doomsdayers rail about the debt for over 20 years now, and the disaster has yet to accrue. The dollar is still the strongest currency in the world. Can someone actually explain in reality when and how this debt crisis will unfold?

On vacation. Will provide a proper response when back next week, but the simple answer is that nobody knows. But...if it does happen, it will be without warning and it won’t be gradual. It will go from normal to chaos in a minute.