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I’d be more motivated if I did not think 5 years of that would result in the savings (and triple that) being handed out as partial reparations and to liberal universities to run enforced Gender diversity camps.
U.S. Budget Gap Triples to Record $3.1 Trillion
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Nope, but guns and ammo will.
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Stocks in a well run company with hard assets worth more than the outstanding value of the stock might be a hedge against inflation.
Selling your stocks for dollars is not so good if you need trillion dollar notes to buy something (not that hyper inflation is coming to the USA but Congress is trying their best to cause it to happen).
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What do you think can be done about this if anything?
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The Corona virus was a lame excuse for Pelosi and the Democrat Governors to steal $3 Trillion and add it to the ever growing debt.Take the rhetoric and actions of this administration and switch the letter after their name to a "D" vs an R and this forum would've exploded in times past. This is even prior to Covid..... After Covid? The hill turns into a mountain, and still few voices will call him out.
Trump did it so it's 4D chess.....
A simple public service announcement campaign suggesting vulnerable people take precautions would have sufficed.
The dire death predictions have not come true. We should declare victory over this virus and get back to business.
This was as shameless and shameful as the 2009 bailouts of those too big to fail (cronies of politicians).
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The same actions it would take to save a business. Until the budget is balanced and the deficit has been paid:
- An austerity program. Cut all non-critical expenditures. That will include a lot of expenditures and programs that many believe are "critical".
- Increase revenue. Taxes will have to go up (corporate and personal). Additional revenue generated from the tax increase will have to be applied to paying down the budget by statute.
- A "Balanced Budget" constitutional amendment to prevent future lawmakers from doing it in the future.
What won't work:
- Not taking action or giving up.
- Leaving it to the generations that follow.
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433 Posts
Winning
Two kinds of problems in the world: 1. those you can do something about; and 2. those you cannot do anything about.
You witnessed the illogic reality during this epidemic of people buying flimsy bottles of water when water from the tap at home was available and could have been stored, if necessary, more cheaply. You saw the logical reaction of people buying ingredients to make food at home and to clean at home. So, if shtf is going to happen, you have a minor experience and can prepare. This means spending potential investment dollars on medical and dental treatments today as they will not be available to you when shtf. That is all you can do.
The government spending more than it can raise in taxes is something beyond your control. Most people do not have more than a few months of savings. So, if you do have investments, you have already tried to figure out what you might have when shtf - and cannot rely upon your expectations.
You witnessed the illogic reality during this epidemic of people buying flimsy bottles of water when water from the tap at home was available and could have been stored, if necessary, more cheaply. You saw the logical reaction of people buying ingredients to make food at home and to clean at home. So, if shtf is going to happen, you have a minor experience and can prepare. This means spending potential investment dollars on medical and dental treatments today as they will not be available to you when shtf. That is all you can do.
The government spending more than it can raise in taxes is something beyond your control. Most people do not have more than a few months of savings. So, if you do have investments, you have already tried to figure out what you might have when shtf - and cannot rely upon your expectations.
The definition of a well run company has changed over the years. It used to be any company that was run for the primary benefit of the stockholders. Increasingly that has changed to include a more nebulous concept of stakeholders (it's pretty much a given that top brass of any entity whether private or public looks after themselves first).
That said perhaps it depends upon whether inflation is accompanied by economic growth (and in the case of the last 40 years declining interest rates). Most stocks didn't do so well during the inflation of the 1970s because it was accompanied by rising interest rates and stagnating economic growth (stagflation). Also the official government indicators of inflation rarely coincide with the average individual's personal inflation for nondiscretionary expenditures. We certainly have inflation right now across the board in many asset classes.
With today's ultra low interest rates the present value of Social Security obligations is astronomical.
All that can be done? Circle the toilet for a few more years, then the country collapses. Hopefully what comes after that isn't purely terrible. But there is no stoping the failure of the country.
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I really would like a balanced budget ammendment. We need to quit supporting people who won't support themselves and we need to kill a whole lot of government agencies
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The problem is unlike a business politicians are involved.
I doubt many remember this but before 9/11 President Bush 43 tried to reform SS by allowing people to invest SS in the stock market.
Looking at how the stock market has gone up since 2001 proves it was a good idea but at the time it was loudly denounced and bombed out.
Other times of attempted austerity measures resulted in the Democrats running ads showing Paul Ryan pushing granny in a wheel chair off a cliff.
Until Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and many others are replaced with ethical patriotic people nothing good will happen as far as a sane budget.
Sounds good on paper. In the real world it would take a literal miracle for all this to happen, not that it's not a noble goal (and one which I apply to my personal life).
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It is both parties. Trump tripled what Obama left us.
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I do believe there are still enough energetic, innovative and hard working honest people to not let this happen or to rebuild promptly.
I wish I was 40 years younger. With all this knowledge at our fingertips there is so much I would like to do.
An economic collapse does not mean a collapse of knowledge or of the infrastructure.
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Doing nothing and surrendering is not an option.
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I would have posted this exact thing 10 years ago - not so sure it is still true. Although I still think this myself most days - today is just not one of them!
The politics are impossible - people have been voting themselves free stuff for so long - anyone that tries to cut spending can not get elected.
Hard to imagine a candidate for POTUS saying we have to cut social security, Medicare and the military ever getting elected.
But even if someone that was already elected tried it - like say Trump in his second term -
When government spending is 15% of the total economy cutting spending a little and raising taxes a little can be done - and the other 85% of the economy will not be damaged enough to cause a major problem.
The larger the % of the total economy government becomes the harder it is to cut spending and raise taxes - without hurting things. I fear we are past the point - government (federal, state & local) is pushing close to $10 trillion dollars out of a GDP of around $20 trillion.
When gov is close to 50% of all spending - it becomes really hard to cut it without making things worse.
If government cut spending - and raised tax rates - we could very well see total tax revenue decrease - and maybe even see a larger budget deficit as a result of a fiscal austerity program.
When government cuts spending people lose their jobs - when people lose their jobs the government welfare programs must spend more to provide the unemployed the benefits to survive.
Just don't ask me for my solution. :couch:
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And the President after Trump will continue increasing the debt.
Trump had no control over the Governors shutting down the States resulting in the economic catastrophe which has increased the debt more than usual.
President Trump had to deal with the situation that was handed to him. The virus panic was another attack against President Trump. What happens after Nov. 3rd. will prove this.
Pie in the sky.
1. Austerity and "non critical" expenditures - who decides what is "non critical"? In my own life that's easy. Once even one other person gets involved it becomes more complicated. Multiply that by 350 million and compound that by people with more influence and power than the average Joe Six Pack.
2. Increase revenue by raising taxes - not a given in any scenario as people can and do modify their behavior based on the ever increasing complexities of a "progressive" tax system which tries to nudge people into certain actions, expenditures and behaviors. Big money is far more mobile in today's world than ever before. Right now people are moving with their wallets from high tax states to lower tax states. It doesn't take too much imagination to see that playing out on a global scale for big money people.
3. Balanced budget amendment - this might be more likely, but the bar is pretty high for any constitutional amendment.
Doing nothing is sometimes the best option - it's not necessarily surrendering. We can demand better from our representatives, but we also have to demand it of ourselves. And if everybody isn't on board, then nobody's on board.
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