U.S. Government shuts down.

[Jester]

What budget? Is it balanced? Who can tell? What is stimulus? Is all spending stimulus? How much stimulus do you need? Is it prudent to incur decades of expensive debt, for years of QE "smoothing" of a temporary fiscal correction. Worse yet, much of the "stimulus" is directed at re-inflating the same bubbles that burst in 2009.

*sigh*

Okay. The budget, whether it is spelled out in a bill or not, is government incomings and outgoings, which are carefully tracked, because they're all approved by congress. No, it isn't balanced, although the deficit has fallen dramatically since the sequester. Stimulus is two things: Government deficit spending, and providing high-quality, secure assets to the financial sector (government bonds) with which to patch up their balance sheets. All spending creates bonds, which is stimulus in an environment of flight to safety. Most spending is stimulating in that it creates demand, although I'm sure you could find ways of just wasting resources if you really wanted to. You need enough stimulus to close the output gap, and restore GDP back to its long-run trend growth, before hysteresis permanently degrades the quality of your workforce. For the US, that's about $2 trillion more than you did. Yes, it's prudent to accrue "decades of debt," and no, it's not expensive, government borrowing rates are bottomed out, and have been since 2008. No, QE is not this process, QE is monetary policy. Nor is QE consumption smoothing, although it is countercyclical. Yes, we need to reinflate the "bubbles," not to their 2006 peaks, but back to their long-run historical trends.

If that answers your barrage of questions?

]But it is.

But it isn't.

The US is not like most other nations. We have over extended debt at all levels from personal, to corporate, to civic, to national. The estimated amount of just federal debt every current citizen owes today is $52,885. There are four people in my household, which means we owe federal bond holders about $211,540. My ability to pay off my share is diminishing, as it is with the boomers. Meanwhile, the amount of debt we are incurring has accelerated faster than our ability to pay it off. The legacy of our generation will be a series of financial fiascoes engineered by the greedy, bailed out by governments, and paid for by our children and grand children. Clearly, an intergenerational swindle. I cannot support it.

You largely owe this debt *to yourselves*. You can't literally borrow from the future. That's physically impossible. One saver is another borrower, by simple accounting identity, and one person's 401k is another (younger) person's resources, transferred to the no-longer-earning to keep them alive. I know you weep for the children, but seriously. This is not a realistic picture of US debt, which I might emphasize again can be borrowed at historic lows *at this very instant*.

And... the financing is cheap now... But, most of the federal debt are necessarily in short term notes. So, once it gets more expensive, it careens out of control. As it stands now, we cannot afford to have the economy improve. It would drive up our borrowing costs beyond our ability to pay. I'd say it is a death spiral.

The US prints its own currency. Unless you're expecting inflation to suddenly spike to 20%, you'll be fine. The higher inflation goes, the less the existing stock of debt is worth. If the economy grows, so does the tax base. Unless you are hit by a sharp shock of real inflation (AKA sudden poverty) because your factories rust and your workers lose their limbs, you'll be fine. There is no realistic crisis scenario here, at the federal level, which is what this shutdown gong show is about. This is not a "death spiral."

As for the link, it doesn't seem to suggest anything more to me than "the US rolls over its debt," which is about as interesting as the sun rising. What's supposed to be the story?

More ropadope; Then OMB Director Jack Lew promised us something different.

Well, he lied to you. Or at least had his rose-coloured glasses on. And thank the heavens, because as I cannot conceivably emphasize enough, *now is not the right time to be balancing the budget*.

For who? Do you honestly believe that by forcing the uninsured (who mostly either don't see a need for it, or cannot afford it) onto an insurance plan that it will decrease the rates that the rest of us who can afford it pay?

It will overall decrease health care spending in the country. Whether it moves it onto the government books, probably it will. But it also insures millions of extra people. And don't give me "don't see a need for it." Running around in a country with astronomically expensive medical care and no insurance is, on net, costing everyone extra. That some people can't see it is myopia, but it's not wrong.

I mean let's call it what it is, right? Obamacare is primarily a law that targets those who cannot afford insurance, and forces them to go onto State run exchanges where the are forced to buy an insurance product from a private insurance company, or face penalties. It forces companies to provide an approved health care plan, whether they can afford it or not, or face fines. This is only a great idea if you are a) wealthy enough to not care about insurance premiums, b) an insurance company c) a health care facility who had to write off the unpaid health care of the uninsured d) so poor that had you looked into it, you'd have been on Medicaid anyway.

It is not a single payer system. It is not nationalized health care.

Sure isn't. Wish it was. It's going to save a lot less resources this way.

Worse, the abuses are not rampant yet, but... the system rewards individuals that skip insurance until they need it, then only get it while they need it.

Isn't that what the Individual Mandate is for?

For me personally; My health care will get worse, less convenient, and more expensive because of Obamacare.

I'm sorry to hear it. It's not the plan I would have designed. But then, sausages and laws...

It is irrelevant. It is unpopular with the constituents of the congress people who've dug in their heels.

"We're obviously targeting the programs people don't like" is different (and rather more altruistic) logic than "I'd like to get re-elected so I'll pander to my angry constituents."

Our government, at all levels operates on budgets. And funding bills, and the budget originates in the House. The House has attempted to make a budget for the past three years, and Reid, nor the WH have attempted to address the budget.

The Republicans are *shutting down the government*. If they'd back down on their demands, there would be a budget almost instantly. But you can't pass a budget if the congress is deadlocked, and one side is holding the whole fracking US debt hostage and conceding nothing.

I think this is more likely a last stand.

A last stand before what? Health care? They might pick a better Alamo...

During Obama's first 18 months, when Democrats controlled it all, they bloated all the budgets.

Because they were trying to prevent a second great depression. Obama inherited the largest economic crisis since 1929. If anything, they spent far too little, not far too much, and the retrenchment has slowed recovery.

Since they've lost control of the House, and therefore the purse strings, they've maintained their bloated budgets by a) not renegotiating the budget, and b) forcing budget showdowns with CR's and debt ceilings. These are the key events when the House, can assert whatever flabby muscles they have left.

The Republicans apparently believe they're allowed to veto any passed legislation, not by repealing it (which would require overriding a democratic filibuster) but by simply shutting down the entire government and threatening *default* until the other side just gives in to their demands. This is not responsible governance, this is nihilism. If they wanted to argue that whomever controls the House should control legislation, then they probably shouldn't have filibustered anything and everything when they were in the minority. But that ship has sailed.

It appears they are the underdogs, with the Executive, the Senate, and the Press, and 48% of the people arranged against them.

Judging by their approval ratings, and the polling on who people are blaming for this mess, it's a hell of a lot more than 48% of the people.

-Jester