Address now doesn't mean "cut now." It is patently unfair to cut benefits to current retirees who can not adjust by working longer or saving more. If you want to address by completely raising taxes a smaller increase would have the same effect as a larger increase 10 years from now. This issue has been known for decades and the fixes are politically difficult but not all that tough is we had a benevolent dictator implementing change.

If America cut its defence spending to just three times China it would halve the (currently falling) deficit (assuming revenues dont change obv).

It would take very little to get a surplus in America over the next decade hacking into defence spending and reforming tax so the rich no longer only pay 15% on income would get there without needing to touch anything else.

Things America doesnt need to do:
1, touch SNAP - it tracks with poverty which tracks with jobs, the cost will fall as people get more jobs and become less poor - it is a symptom of a problem, not a problem that needs reform
1b, and capping unemployment welfare and other safety nets doesnt create jobs or wealth dummies, how do people actually believe this?!?!?!
2, retirement age on social security - what savings you may have raising retirement will be very very small and it is HUGELY MASSIVELY discriminatory against the poor who need SS the most
3, voucherise medicare - like SNAP the problems with medicare are a symptom of a different issue, voucherising it will just discriminate against the poor who need it most like raising retirement age
4, pretend that trickle down is a real thing, cos it obviously isnt
5, keep worshipping the free market and deregulation - since 1790 America has had 16 banking crises and Canada has had zero because they are not obsessed with the free market and deregulation like some cult or a battered wife or some other metaphor

Nice post Phil.

so your future depends on the world continuing to play nice with the US dollar?? because Russia/China/Iran might have something to say about it..

the world saw 10 years ago we'll concoct whatever story we feel is necessary to bomb *wherever* back to the stone age, its not in anyones interest to rankle America.

No, china really has nothing to say about it. They are not the massive idiots you must think they are.

They can always try insisting that the US public buys Chinese goods in yuan and good luck with that.

It's seriously time financial commentators stopped pretending the US borrows money from China rather than provides it with a savings account to put its excess dollars in. I understand why governments pretend that they are borrowing but it's a mystery to me why people who are paid to have insight into the economy like to pose as too stupid to understand what government debt actually is.

Because MB how you see gov finance as working is not universally agreed upon by mainstream economists.

I mean, it works how it works.

Like, what exactly would it even mean for China to not "play nice" with the US dollar?

Russia and Iran are in no danger of being any risk to the dollar no matter what they do. China could conceivably dump dollar denominated assets like treasuries and drive up yields (and borrowing costs) in the US... But that would involve taking a MASSIVE hit on their holdings that would do significant damage to their own economy.

China declaring economic war on the US is possible in the same way that it's possible for me to buy a gun and shoot myself in the stomach. I could but I probably won't.

EDIT: The kind of people who think that the Chinese are capable of making a move like this tend to see the world economy as a zero sum game. They also tend to see other countries as cardboard cutouts who have no motivations besides hurting the US. Thankfully their world view is miles and miles away from reality.

The irony is that if any side declared economic war on the other it's much more likely to be America on China. China needs America and it needs the dollar, the reason they rattle sabres is because they want to distract from them devaluing their own currency, which they do precisely to trade with America (amongst others obv).

Sick bill, bro.

good bump

dude is an unmitigated fraud

Sweet power point, jerkoff.

He literally said insurance can't work if healthy people have to subsidize sick people.

****ing dumbass

Non-zero chance he knows he's completely full of it and that's all a dog and pony shown for their idiot voters.

Why do you people keep giving him the benefit of the doubt? He has done exactly nothing to indicate he isn't very stupid.

I just see that sort of messaging as playing to the GOP base, and I imagine dudes like awval, eddy, et al sitting around thinking, "Yeah! Why should *I* have to pay for those sick people's care?"

Ryan doesn't even understand how insurance works. You are way over-estimating both his capabilities and intellect.

I'm not religious, but if I were, I'd seriously debate committing a heinous crime that puts me in hell just so I have access to guys like Paul Ryan.

That's the most incredible thing about the modern GOP.

Paul Ryan is a frat dude who got a bachelor's from a safety school(no offense to any Redhawks) who family promptly used their connections to get him on a job in DC immediately after college.

He's never worked in finance or academia or civil service or anything that would make you think he's got any sort of knowledge about this ****.

The people giving him the benefit of the doubt are just as ignorant and useless as he is.

To be clear, I was not giving him the benefit of the doubt. He may very well be a C student. My point was the purpose of the presentation was to rationalize the loss of benefits that the coveted tax cuts require.

I think Paul Ryan is ****ing scum.





Yeah, rich people need some help. It's tough out there for the richest of society. All that not worrying about how they're going to pay their bills, and all the not worrying about how they're going to afford life's necessities. It's tough out there