[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG1DUn8mMwk[/media]
Everyone should watch this if you haven't already. It explains the threat to our global economy.
It doesn't explain that "uncle sam" could do both, or that he can raise taxes on the rich who have the lowest tax rates in recent history. Or that the corporations don't pay taxes.
This video pretty much just says that we're fucked and the global economy is going to collapse. There's ways out of it. But we're probably not going to fix it thanks to the political gridlock. S&P had every right to downgrade us.
It's disgusting how the [B]world [/B]economy balances on one country
And that Churches don't pay taxes either. Tax them. That'll help.
*cough* *cough* Not sure on the verity of the video, considering there was a massive amount of problems.
a) The US does not have a lack of people to borrow from. In fact it has more than enough to do this. The US government imposes borrowing limits at themselves.
b) The bloody government can't magically create money. In fact small amount of inflation is a sign of a healthy economy.
Just these two very big issues in the video make me doubt the person actually knows what he's talking about.
[QUOTE=MrEndangered;31655293]And that Churches don't pay taxes either. Tax them. That'll help.[/QUOTE]
Crime against god, burn in hell etc.
[QUOTE=MrEndangered;31655293]And that Churches don't pay taxes either. Tax them. That'll help.[/QUOTE]
Churches aren't taxed because they are a non-profit group, and non-profit groups aren't taxed. Should they be subject to the same rules that other non-profit groups are such as publishing expenses? Yes, but when you get into taxing specific entities, you must also argue to tax entities that are alike in that if you tax non-profit churches, you must tax similar non-profit groups. I am quite sure the the different treatment of the groups came into being when the IRS was created.
Some other reasoning is the separation of church and state, which the argument is that the government can't have any involvement in religion just as religion can't have any involvement in government. People mistake this to mean that a pastor can't have political views or that a politician can't have religious views, it's more that they have to make clear that these are personal views and not views of their organization.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;31656277]*cough* *cough* Not sure on the verity of the video, considering there was a massive amount of problems.
a) The US does not have a lack of people to borrow from. In fact it has more than enough to do this. The US government imposes borrowing limits at themselves.
b) The bloody government can't magically create money. In fact small amount of inflation is a sign of a healthy economy.
Just these two very big issues in the video make me doubt the person actually knows what he's talking about.[/QUOTE]
The government doesn´t create money, it borrows it from the federal reserve.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;31656277]a) The US does not have a lack of people to borrow from. In fact it has more than enough to do this. The US government imposes borrowing limits at themselves.
b) The bloody government can't magically create money. In fact small amount of inflation is a sign of a healthy economy.[/QUOTE]
And these borrowing limits are raised every couple of years, which is kind of like saying "that's the last shot of vodka tonight, and then drinking another shot five minutes later. Also the issue isn't with paying off the current debt, it's more the increasing debt that will be difficult to pay off. If this year's budget was froze, the budget would be balanced in five years without any cuts, but the issue is that there is no attempt to budget the balance but instead all attempts are to lower the proposed increases.
Also, the government can and does just create money. If you want to be technical, it is The Federal Reserve which actually isn't apart of the government, but they receive treasures we print and they loan out money. The value of the dollar comes from nothing ever since we've been of the gold standard. Also, you are incorrect about inflation. The video points this out by talking about stagflation. Inflation is typically seen to be positive because it's a sign of a growing economy, but it is always bad when the economy is not growing because the your wage remains the same while prices grow higher.
[QUOTE=Kentz;31656579]The government doesn´t create money, it borrows it from the federal reserve.[/QUOTE]
And for that to be true you have to assume that The Fed actually has money. They don't, so they print it. Such an odd system. How does it make sense to pay interest on money that is created from nothing? For many people the system is hard to believe and there must be more to it, but it isn't at all. As long as congress allows The Fed to keep printing us money we will be able to pay any debt, the only issue is if the currency will be worth anything.
I like how politically neutral this video is.
If the US really wants their problems fixed, they should make their damned tax code shorter and more comprehensible, and shrink their IRS branch.
They have no jobs, because it is next to impossible to employ somebody there.
Time to tax the rich and cut the military then.
I don't understand printing money to pay off debt that you can't pay to start with. When you print the money doesn't the total worth come out the same, meaning you don't actually have any extra to pay with?
[QUOTE=Latency;31659549]I don't understand printing money to pay off debt that you can't pay to start with. When you print the money doesn't the total worth come out the same, meaning you don't actually have any extra to pay with?[/QUOTE]
I think it depends on where the money go as well, right now it pretty much just fill up the debt space.
You can say what you want about this thing, but a 14 TRILLION dollar debt, is not going away by just increasing taxes.
Cut the military budget and increase taxes on the rich.
So basically it's like my countless disastrous sessions of various city/civilization sim games. Dear god, this stresses me out.
[QUOTE=BigOwl;31656436]Crime against god, burn in hell etc.[/QUOTE]
Fuck off. Churches aren't taxed because they're non-profit. I've actually seen the budget from my church, where their bills go. Every single cent they collect from tithe goes to building expenses, staff (and by staff I mean daycare workers, janitors), and [b]charity[/b].
I fucking hate people who get snarky about shit they don't even understand.
[QUOTE=Wolverunder;31672154]Fuck off. Churches aren't taxed because they're non-profit. I've actually seen the budget from my church, where their bills go. Every single cent they collect from tithe goes to building expenses, staff (and by staff I mean daycare workers, janitors), and [b]charity[/b].
I fucking hate people who get snarky about shit they don't even understand.[/QUOTE]
I already pointed that out, but what people need to key on is that the IRS should treat churches like any other non-profit group. The requirements aren't the same, though then again there is the separation of church and state argument, because you could make the argument that the government taxing religious institution would be in violation because the government is affecting a religious institution. One way to think of it is that the government is the US and religion is Finland. The US has no ability to tax Finland because they are two separate entities. I believe the actual concept was described as a wall of separation.
An unrealistic scenario would a sin tax being placed on religious institutions that would be meant to make those institutions less viable and less available granted they run on donations. A more more realistic scenario would be certain religions being taxed more than others which would be in plain violation of the constitution because the government would be favoring the religion with the lowest tax rate. I think not taxing religious should remain the same, but they should be subject to the same rules that other similar non-profit groups are. Though then again, the comparison I gave above probably dictates that religion is constitutionally in a class of its own.
That made things seem really really bad...
Is there any particular reason the U.S. won't cut military spending though? Everyone always says they should but it never even seems to be considered despite being such an obvious solution. Why is that
TAX THE RICH, CUT THE DEFENSE,
And kill the guys who disagree
[QUOTE=stepat201;31678995]Is there any particular reason the U.S. won't cut military spending though? Everyone always says they should but it never even seems to be considered despite being such an obvious solution. Why is that[/QUOTE]
'Everyone' doesn't always know the full story.
Part of it is just dumb people in office/corruption/whatever you want to call it, but people also need to realize that its not like every year we're sending 700 billion US dollars into a big hole in the ground, we're putting 800 billion USD into our own economy.
However, the MAIN thing is that it could be going to things other than a shitty war. Not spending the money may not be an option at the moment, but spending it in better ways is.
Scary shit.
get rid of the new free healthcare plan that is going to cost 50 billion more. Cut defense because we already have too much of that. increase taxes on the rich. If we got the debt down even by 1 trillion that would increase the budget by a ton. I think its something like 15% of our budget goes to paying off the debt interest. That 15% could go to education.
[editline]11th August 2011[/editline]
The stupidest thing my state did was cut the education budget. That is the LAST thing you should cut.
Still pains me to know that some people, especially in the US, couldn't give a fuck or at least inform themselves more about this situation that everyone is in. A lot of people my age that I've talked to in my class don't even know or couldn't even care.
[QUOTE=Pepin;31656710]And for that to be true you have to assume that The Fed actually has money. They don't, so they print it. Such an odd system. How does it make sense to pay interest on money that is created from nothing? For many people the system is hard to believe and there must be more to it, but it isn't at all. As long as congress allows The Fed to keep printing us money we will be able to pay any debt, the only issue is if the currency will be worth anything.[/QUOTE]
aka inflation. This is why printing tons of money to pay the debt is a bad idea overall, you're just making the currency weaker.
So either way, we're fucked?
Never trust a political message communicated through a cartoon.
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