I'm not sure why anyone is afraid of the debt to be honest. It's nowhere near a problem level. So yes, the right's viewpoint comes down to ignorance about how governments financially operate and bigoted ideological bull****.

lol I had forgotten how awful insoo was

Plus "the debt is huge, we need to cut education and taxes while increasing defence spending asap" is hardly the logic of a party that cares about the debt.

It's an empty excuse to achieve what they actually want and the dummies keep accepting it at face value.

You said what I did, but much more succinctly. They know they can't sell people on "work harder and plan to do it into your 80s with chronic untreated conditions while your children go to school hungry and sick too" so they instead scream about TWENTY TRILLION SCARY and hope everyone will vote themselves into the gutter because they've whipped them into a frenzy about funding problems in 2050. Never can you discuss addressing the funding problem by taxation and revenue: only by taking from the shiftless lazy welfare bums and olds.

muricans ALWAYS resort to 'WE OWE IT TO OURSELVES'

must be the 1000th time I've seen that while arguing about US debt

guess what you OWE IT TO YOUR PENSION FUNDS

20T$ going missing from granny and grandpa and YOUR PARENTS when **** hits the fan

Really great p0st, br0. Did you, like, read anything he said?

I know chief. NO BROKEN PROMISES TO THE OLDS. Left and right in agreement. No fair to grams, gramps, the pensioners, and the sickly poors to tell them they'll have X in 2025 when we can't pay for it. I determined we have consensus there!

In light of that: Now what?

I'll cut to the chase: you want to tell granny and grandpa and YOUR PARENTS that **** hit the fan and they can't have their pensions and medicine and social security retirement income...NOW. Right now.

I mean go forth dude. Stop telling me about the $20T. I get it. Go have Paul Ryan tell the olds they can't get what they were promised, the hungry school children to go hungry and put hair on their chests because it's character building, the sick to buck up and get a job. Stop ****ing clucking about how scared you are of the $20T and let the real burden come hit to the people who deserve it (the poors, the sick, the olds, the pensioners) so you and hippo and Paul Ryan aren't so frightened about 2050. I know that's hard on you guys, I mean those poor shiftless bums and olds are really starting to cause some anxiety in you about the state of government budgets two generations from now, time for those ****ers to get off the government so we can make you feel better.

Even more basic than that.

When what hits the fan, Alan? Like what will make that money "go missing"? Do you mean "when **** hits the fan" in the doomsday prepper sense? Because I'm gonna be honest, I don't even think Paul Ryan, superwonk, is going to be able to come up with a plan that provides sustainable defined benefit payments to those people stuck in a cannibal basement during The Road.

Like, one of my numerous numerous problems with the incredibly terrible Season 2 of House of Cards is the blithe way everyone treats raising the retirement age as "entitlement reform" with literally no pushback by any character.

I mean, in one sense, yes, that is reform. It is different, and thus reformed. But what the **** is the goal of that reform?

Say what you will about Matt Ygelias, but this video should be ****ing required viewing:
http://www.vox.com/us-public-debt/

I think it's because people make the analogy to personal finances where such a debt level (like what five times yearly revenue?) might be a huge burden and think ZOMG what if I ran up 300k of credit card debt????? That would be terrible!

But if someone were to offer me 300k unsecured at 3% of course I would take it. I'd take as much as they would be willing to lend me.

Got a genuine LOL here.

Its quite the trick that the right wing in USA has managed to get the left wing fist pumping for the debt based currency system and all the inequality that results thereby.

Glad I am an European where the left is a bit more on the ball and not so pushed into a horrible position simply by trying to remain reasonable in the face of sheer lunacy.

Does anything like this exist in Yankland:

http://www.positivemoney.org/

what happened to that bank of england link? or was that in another thread?

Made a seperate thread for that.

Oh trust me, we're well aware

It just has like less than 0% chance of changing in my lifetime. We can't even get single-payer healthcare, this isn't even close to being on the table

Banks run the show.

I haven't thought about this in forever but his 365 day temp-ban following the 2012 election must have expired by now. Come back, Inso0!

I found it very page-turning in the second half, while simultaneously recognizing that no, these plot twists are cheap and this show is nowhere near the level of a BB/MM/TD like we thought it might have been after season 1.

I'm just going to stick to my view that whenever a person in a debate says you should listen to Matt Yglesias they are about to be very wrong.

+1 to dvault post.


Funny while I watched it I thought the same thing but I would it really shock you if democrats did push thru an increase in retirement age or reduction benefits?

Oh I absolutely expect Clinton to try some **** like that. But it's like, what problem exactly as we solving? Like DVaut said, if it's "old people in the future will be paupers!", accelerating that lack of payment into the present day seems like a really odd way to deal with that concern!

Maybe now that I'm writing this out HoC was operating at a level above me and they were actually parodying the way Villagers treat "deficit cutting entitlement reform" as an unimpeachably valuable thing.

Paul Ryans solution is to throw a bunch of **** at the fan.

The US dollar is the world's reserve currency and the US govt is in full control of the dollar. That's why the debt is insignifigant.

The debt/deficit is not an insignificant challenge. Lot's of ways to address but we should address it and the sooner the better.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100987108

What an incredibly perfect example of what everyone was talking about. Here's a survey that says economists think future deficits are a bigger problem than present deficits, we better slash spending on poor people ASAP!