The (unintended) genious of the GOP debt ceiling "plan"

[AustinChief]

I highly doubt that the GOP planned any of this but I think the current situation has a good chance of working out heavily in their favor IF they accept some minor concessions from the Dems and move on.

Here is why...

If they had simply made this fight about spending and NOT tried to force the Dems to defund or delay Obamacare I honestly think the Dems would have put forth a delay themselves after finding out how far from finished the website truly was. As it stands the GOP's stance has made it impossible for the Dems to enact a delay without giving the GOP a massive "win."

I have stated all along that an Obamacare delay would backfire against the GOP by 1)pushing this massively unpopular issue back past the next election and 2)giving the Dems time to "fix" the system enough to make it more palatable.

The debt ceiling issue and govt shutdown will be long forgotten from the ephemeral public consciousness by the time the next election hits. What little memory remains will be of how the current govt doesn't work and we need to "throw the bums out." That kind of attitude hurts the Dems FAR worse than it does the GOP.

Barring more GOP screwups I honestly think we'll see a 50/50 or 51/49 split after 2014. (Of course 50/50 doesn't help the GOP much)

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by Cleudus

Wow your graph with no real news link, that looks like it was created by a republican government propaganda website is nice man. Here is a little something from the CBO, who I believe over any damn republican democrat political propaganda website. As it is independent.

"On September 25, 2013, the Treasury estimated that its ability to borrow under those extraordinary measures will be exhausted no later than October 17, leaving a cash balance of approximately $30 billion. CBO currently projects that the Treasury will exhaust all of the borrowing authority created by those measures, as well as its cash balance, between October 22 and the end of the month. (It is possible, however, that the date could fall outside of that range.) "

Cbo website. I can't post links or pictures.

So basically your full of shit. As these tax revenues to cover all our spending that your chart likes to show, is manufactured. Show me the link and back it up with a non conservative website please.

That actually corroborates the data that I posted. It doesn't refute it at all, I don't dispute any of these numbers. The CBO's figures look right. That doesn't mean that we'll default. We would have to choose to prioritize default in order for it to happen. And by "we" I mean Obama would specifically have to say "Don't pay the interest - let's default instead."

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Cleudus

de·fault
noun
noun: default; plural noun: defaults
diˈfôlt,ˈdēfôlt/

1.
failure to fulfill an obligation, esp. to repay a loan or appear in a court of law.
"it will have to restructure its debts to avoid default"
synonyms: nonpayment, failure to pay, bad debt...

Yeah bro, its all about the interest payment.

Protip: The deficit is created from Expenses - Revenue. The deficit was positive, meaning the US doesn't have "more than enough revenure to make all OBLIGATED PAYMENTS." Meaning they have to borrow, in other words raise the debt ceiling.

How brainwashed are you son?

I'm going to have to guess that you are either functionally retarded (so sorry for you) or a child. I find it hard to believe that an even somewhat educated adult would be this ignorant.

You don't know what the term default means in this context and you obviously don't know what obligated payments are. These are terms with clear definitions that apply to the discussion. Educate yourself then come back.. or better yet don't come back but please please please educate yourself before you embarrass yourself any further.

[Cleudus]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Austin! You got me! You almost had me fooled. What is this, some sort of Huffington Post comment bot. You playing around with machine learning or something? I was fooled for a minute, but the talking points are too disjointed as though they're just copy and pasted without any real connecting logic between the sentences.

A nice touch responding to it!

A very nice script. Kudos!

Run away mate. You got nothing else without your republican/government propaganda.

[Cleudus]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

I'm going to have to guess that you are either functionally retarded (so sorry for you) or a child. I find it hard to believe that an even somewhat educated adult would be this ignorant.

You don't know what the term default means in this context and you obviously don't know what obligated payments are. These are terms with clear definitions that apply to the discussion. Educate yourself then come back.. or better yet don't come back but please please please educate yourself before you embarrass yourself any further.

Defaulting on a loan includes interest and principal. You are so much into your ideology and beliefs that your government party tells you that you can't even except simple facts. Mate this is a wake up call for you. Are you objective? If not then tell me and I'll stop debating with you knowing full well you are completely indoctrinated. If you want to put party before country, just let me know that you are unreasonable, and disbelieve all facts that are contrary to what you party made you swallow.

[Cleudus]

Originally Posted by Taco John

That actually corroborates the data that I posted. It doesn't refute it at all, I don't dispute any of these numbers. The CBO's figures look right. That doesn't mean that we'll default. We would have to choose to prioritize default in order for it to happen. And by "we" I mean Obama would specifically have to say "Don't pay the interest - let's default instead."

The interest? Okay I don't follow the democratic republican media anymore. Where did you learn that defaulting on a loan only equals only interest, and not simple facts that a loan = principal + interest. Please tell me the media that told you this. I would love to know. What goop you swallowing?

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Cleudus

Defaulting on a loan includes interest and principal. You are so much into your ideology and beliefs that your government party tells you that you can't even except simple facts. Mate this is a wake up call for you. Are you objective? If not then tell me and I'll stop debating with you knowing full well you are completely indoctrinated. If you want to put party before country, just let me know that you are unreasonable, and disbelieve all facts that are contrary to what you party made you swallow.

PLEASE educate yourself.

I bolded the part that is correct in this regard (although the "principal" is simply bonds reaching maturity which doesn't matter since you simply issue more bonds to cover that). The US didn't make a "loan" to defense contractors, nor did it loan money to Food Stamp recipients nor does it loan money to the people who work for the FDA. The LOAN we would default on (should Obama chose to) are BONDS (and you can maybe stretch and throw in Social Security) we have plenty of money to make these payments. What you are talking about are making payments to other programs and services that are NOT OBLIGATED payments. Just because you REALLY WANT to keep playing paintball or giving to charity doesn't make it an OBLIGATION requiring the credit card company to raise your limit.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Cleudus

The interest? Okay I don't follow the democratic republican media anymore. Where did you learn that defaulting on a loan only equals only interest, and not simple facts that a loan = principal + interest. Please tell me the media that told you this. I would love to know. What goop you swallowing?

And now you've shown us all that you don't know how bonds work! YAY!

Bonds are HOW we as a country borrow money. The debt limit is a limit on how many outstanding bonds we can have. When a bond reaches maturity and has to be paid the government can simply issue more bonds to replace them.

Since you won't educate yourself it looks like we will have to help you...

Let's say our debt limit is $1000. We issue $1000 worth of bonds. When some of those mature, let's say $200. We have to pay that $200 BUT WAIT we are now at $800 of our $1000 limit and can issue $200 more in bonds to go back up to the limit and it is a net loss of zero. It's the INTEREST that matters. Interest that is at all time historically low levels regardless of what Cosmo and the scare police would have you believe. Notice how he has bowed out after trying to claim our debt downgrade caused so many problems in that regard.

[Taco John]

Dude coud you give me a sorce on how bonds work? I don't beleeve you.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Dude coud you give me a sorce on how bonds work? I don't beleeve you.

Got it..

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=bonds+for+dummies

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by Taco John

I think it will be more pronounced than you think. What really hasn't registered in the American consciousness right now is that every working person (that means pretty well everyone reading this) is going to be out anywhere from $100 to $300 (in some cases more) per paycheck. People aren't seeing this yet because most haven't renewed their premiums. But you can't take away $100 - $300 from people per paycheck overnight like this without shocking the system.

When this starts to hit, the Republicans will turn up the heat and start promoting their own alternative plan (http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/solutio...-betterway.htm), which is ultimately more palatable to the American tongue. Democrats will be left with little oxygen in the room if they're stuck defending Obamacare.

Renewed my premium today at the benefits meeting at work. My insurance is going up $8 per month or $2 a paycheck.

[Cleudus]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

PLEASE educate yourself.

I bolded the part that is correct in this regard (although the "principal" is simply bonds reaching maturity which doesn't matter since you simply issue more bonds to cover that). The US didn't make a "loan" to defense contractors, nor did it loan money to Food Stamp recipients nor does it loan money to the people who work for the FDA. The LOAN we would default on (should Obama chose to) are T bills (and you can maybe stretch and throw in Social Security) we have plenty of money to make these payments. What you are talking about are making payments to other programs and services that are nOT OBLIGATED payments. Just because you REALLY WANT to keep playing paintball or giving to charity doesn't make it an OBLIGATION requiring the credit card company to raise your limit.

I can't post links

finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2013/01/21/who-really-owns-the-us-national-debt-n1493555/page/full

But you can see US entities own 68% of the debt. And this is for fiscal year 2012. Social Security owns the second major chunk totaling around 2.6 Trillion.

Another question would you buy corporate bonds if they defaulted recently on their previous bonds? In other words: don't pay back. Would you like to own T-bills? They pay no interest compared to other loans and bonds because they are supposed to be safe, I mean the chances of a government defaulting are slim to none, right? So after they default people gonna buy them up like hotcakes is what you are saying .

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Did you not SEE that MASSIVE jump in rates after the downgrade!!!! It's right there on all the charts!

I didn't say there was a massive jump in rates. On $16 trillion, a tiny rate increase due to the credit downgrade = a lot of money.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

The ONLY poster who has put forth a legit point in this regard is FD by stating the fact that the Treasury isn't setup to handle a situation like this. It would require some creative measures to adjust the system to handle this in time. Of course that is entirely on the executive branch.

This is still true. We are technologically incapable of prioritization because our systems are so huge and archaic, running on old languages that few programmers know.

The endeavor that would be needed to make prioritization possible would take a lot of time and money, and no president or congress is ever going to spend the money to make that happen because a default is a stupid option that should not be seriously explored, anyway.

[alnorth]

If something doesn't happen by the 17th (or whatever later date when we actually default, it is probably somewhat later than the 17th), I think what'll happen, especially since we can not prioritize, is Obama will probably invoke the 14th amendment and ignore the debt ceiling. I previously thought he swore he wouldn't, but when you carefully parse the statements he and anyone else from the white house made on it, they never really took it off the table.

[mlyonsd]

We throw $400,000,000,000.00 of interest into a burn barrel every year and now all of a sudden we're worried about interest payments?