Actually the reason there have been few prosecutions is that the activities that destroyed the economy were not actually illegal after decades of deregulation. There was, and mostly still is, no law on the books to charge people with.
Okay, so you took kind of a roundabout route to typing that. Good enough.In sum, I agree with you that you and I won't agree on who got us into this mess
There's no legal action to pursue (if there had been any, Obama would have gladly pursued it--the fact that he didn't pursue it proves that the course was unpursuable). The crisis wasn't caused by people breaking the law; it was caused by politics. Legal politics. It was legal for the Democrats to block Bush Jr.'s attempt to prevent the mortgage crisis from happening, for example. All the citizens can do at this point is vote the perpetrators out of office, at which point you and I get back to that same fundamental disagreement: you and I disagree on who to vote out.But that doesn't mean that it's not in the government's, the economy's, or the citizen's interest to investigate what happened and pursue legal action if it's warranted.
You were not mistaken. For the first half, anyway. Obviously somebody did something wrong, but it was technically legal, and according to U.S. law and Constitution, we can't do anything to punish the perp until November of this year. Which is six months from now. We The People can take action before then--by snipping the government's credit card so it doesn't spend us deeper into the credit hole we're in.But your stance, unless I'm mistaken, is that there's no point since nobody did anything wrong.
Exactly. And the end result of that is, Iceland will find it much harder (or, more likely, impossible) to borrow any more until they agree to pay said creditors what is owed.Do you know what happened when the creditors came knocking on the doors of the Althing? Iceland's political establishment told them to GTFO - that Icelanders were not going to bail out the reckless banking sector, making the creditors whole. And if that meant a bad bond rating then so be it.
Yup. And at other times, it's the President's fault and Congress' fault at the same time (2008 to 2010 being one such case). No, the Democrats aren't 100% to blame, and the Republicans aren't 0% to blame--but a significant majority of America's current debt was rubber-stamped by Democratic Presidents/Congresses.
Okay, so you took kind of a roundabout route to typing that. Good enough.
There's no legal action to pursue (if there had been any, Obama would have gladly pursued it--the fact that he didn't pursue it proves that the course was unpursuable). The crisis wasn't caused by people breaking the law; it was caused by politics. Legal politics. It was legal for the Democrats to block Bush Jr.'s attempt to prevent the mortgage crisis from happening, for example. All the citizens can do at this point is vote the perpetrators out of office, at which point you and I get back to that same fundamental disagreement: you and I disagree on who to vote out.
You were not mistaken. For the first half, anyway. Obviously somebody did something wrong, but it was technically legal, and according to U.S. law and Constitution, we can't do anything to punish the perp until November of this year. Which is six months from now. We The People can take action before then--by snipping the government's credit card so it doesn't spend us deeper into the credit hole we're in.
Exactly. And the end result of that is, Iceland will find it much harder (or, more likely, impossible) to borrow any more until they agree to pay said creditors what is owed.
No, I don't see that as being in the best interests of the citizens of Iceland. Balancing the books so they don't end up in such a predicament to begin with? That is in the best interest of the citizens. And not just in Iceland.
BasketCase said:Exactly. And the end result of that is, Iceland will find it much harder (or, more likely, impossible) to borrow any more until they agree to pay said creditors what is owed.
Oh, it will. Just not all at the same time.As for voting people out, I suspect that you and I are in more agreement than first impressions would give. I'd love to see just about every incumbent out on his / her ass. Obviously that's not going to happen.
Yup. Now you've got it. However, take care to add a few lines, such as "Bush + Republican Congress = Republicans' fault". Both parties are responsible to a degree, but where the two parties diverge is that "Democrat President + Democratic Congress" has over the long term been a lot worse for the U.S. than "Republican President + Republican Congress".FriendlyFire said:Clinton - Democratic President - Republican congress = democrates fault
Bush - Republican President - Democratic congress = democrates fault
BasketCase said:Side note: that chart you posted is bogus. It uses percentages to present a false impression.
They don't.Seems like you are ignoring the incredible damage tax cuts do to the long-term debt.
That chart is also bogus. It charts the future. It charts what is projected to happen, and I guarantee you the actual deficits ten years from now are not going to match the projections (the real deficits could be HIGHER.....)Here's a better one, and it clearly shows how much of came from the Bush Tax cuts.
They don't.
There's almost no correlation at all between tax cuts and deficits. There are many counterexamples, and not only in the U.S. Know how Clinton upped government revenues? With tax cuts for corporations.
Yeah. He followed Bush Sr. who had realised he needed to increase taxes. And as a result became unpopular. Which he must have known, so I consider that a bold patriotic move.Know how Clinton upped government revenues?
Hygro said:That said, we should stimulate the economy back to proper long run growth levels. This means another major round of stimulus, which won't affect our debt problem much at all.
BasketCase said:That chart is also bogus. It charts the future.
long-term growth is unrealistic, and a physical impossibility.
If the US economy were to grow a 2-3% per year, we'd see a factor of 10 increase in 100 years.
[source: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/]
Where's all that stuff going to come from?
10x the energy
10x the raw materials
10x the people (??)
10x the waste (?)
Constant growth is a model for catastrophe. A hard reset. Transition to a steady state economy is the only (as far as I understand) viable long-term economic model.
People have been saying that we are going to run out of resources for 200 years, yet most resources cost less in real terms than ever....
TomMurphy said:Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have seen an impressive and sustained growth in the scale of energy consumption by human civilization. Plotting data from the Energy Information Agency on U.S. energy use since 1650 (1635-1945, 1949-2009, including wood, biomass, fossil fuels, hydro, nuclear, etc.) shows a remarkably steady growth trajectory, characterized by an annual growth rate of 2.9% (see figure). It is important to understand the future trajectory of energy growth because governments and organizations everywhere make assumptions based on the expectation that the growth trend will continue as it has for centuriesand a look at the figure suggests that this is a perfectly reasonable assumption.
[snip]
This post provides a striking example of the impossibility of continued growth at current rateseven within familiar timescales.
[snip - the real meat of the article]
Let me restate that important point. No matter what the technology, a sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy as the entire sun within 1400 years.
[snip]
...continued energy growth will likely be unnecessary if the human population stabilizes. At least the 2.9% energy growth rate we have experienced should ease off as the world saturates with people. But lets not overlook the key point: continued growth in energy use becomes physically impossible within conceivable timeframes.