fiscal cliff deal - Page 2

Originally Posted by skylinejack

Well, all I know is what's in my wallet. And it's getting to be less and less. Regular size bag of Funyuns today at the Dollar Store cost me $1.49. A buck forty-nine!! Smokes went up .10 per pack! Gas went up .10 per gallon. When did all the price increases go into effect? Jan. 02, 2013 Fiscal cliff??? Rich getting richer. Poor getting poorer.

So true, unfortunately.

just read an article on the "top 100" the richest in the world. they had a banner year. (who would have guessed that) the top 100 are worth an estimated 1.7 trillion $. the poor guy at the top only made 22 billion this year. of course that doesn't count the other members of his family who each own pieces of his clothing company.

think about this: if you took all the wealth of the top 100 it would pay down less then 50% of our debt for ONE YEAR.

Originally Posted by silverZ

Just got back from a tax update class today. Really nothing of substance changed for most of us. There are several tax increases for the upper class (single over $400K, married over $450K). The tax increases from the Health Care Act start taking affect now. That's going to be a nightmare. Lot's of new accounting is going to be necessary and this is bound to increase health care cost across the board, especially insurance premiums.

Yep they put all of the tax burden onto the job creators. Just waiting for the backlash from that to kick in when the new monthly numbers start coming in this year. Dont worry though the government will find a way to manipulate it so it looks like were doing good.

Originally Posted by olddude

just read an article on the "top 100" the richest in the world. they had a banner year. (who would have guessed that) the top 100 are worth an estimated 1.7 trillion $. the poor guy at the top only made 22 billion this year. of course that dosen't count the other members of his family who each own pieces of his clothing company.

think about this: if you took all the wealth of the top 100 it would pay down less then 50% of our debt for ONE YEAR.

Or if we lived within our means instead of taking from others... and if the government TRIMS some of the fat we can get out of this mess... The whole fiscal cliff talk has been about "where are we going to cut costs??" In the end, they collectively decided to raise taxes.

Originally Posted by Ewasted

The whole fiscal cliff talk has been about "where are we going to cut costs??" In the end, they collectively decided to raise taxes.

A truly epic failure. Followed by the backlash of higher unemployment/layoffs causing less taxes to come in. The end result is a double failure. Failure to cut costs and failure to increase taxes.

Does anyone know what it costs the US just to service a 14.2 trillion dollar debt a year? If I remember right, a few years ago the goverment borrowed more money and called in a bunch of high interest rate 30 year bonds. I wonder if the Federal Reserve would give them a 0% open ended loan to pay it all off. They've tried pretty much everything else and it doesn't seem to be working so far.

Originally Posted by volvoscrapper

This illustration (forwarded to me from Canada) makes it easy enough even for me to comprehend:

“Fiscal Cliff” put in a better perspective or the idiots guide to the American debt problem

The real numbers:

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $38.50

very very good analogy.

so what happens when other countries wont buy our debt anymore? i think were past the point of no return so the only question now is when is this going to occur

Originally Posted by jghilino

so what happens when other countries wont buy our debt anymore? i think were past the point of no return so the only question now is when is this going to occur

What happens is what is happening now. The fed prints money and buys our bonds. This is happening to the tune of $80 billion a month.

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

What happens is what is happening now. The fed prints money and buys our bonds. This is happening to the tune of $80 billion a month.

That is true. But dont you think the other countries will stop doing business with us because the value of our debt that they hold is becoming worthless?


I think you are referring to operation twist where they are simply refinancing the debt at a lower rate, not using inflationary spending to cover it. The debt ceiling needs to be raised to use inflationary spending to help cover it.

That still does not prevent or help the exponential growth of the debt.

Originally Posted by unknownk

How can they, their economy would collapse.

You know the old saying if I owe the bank $10,000 and can't pay I am screwed, if I owe them $1,000,000,000 and can't pay they are screwed. One of the main reasons countries hold onto dollar is because you can buy oil and food with it, pretty much accepted everywhere.

theres better currencies out there to pick from, the dollar is quickly losing its status as a reserve currency. Alot of world banks are selling dollars and buying other currencies.

im just waiting fr the legislation to come out that 100% of the us debt is held by china, because they have no choice if they want to keep selling there cheap goods here, what else are you going to do once the rest of the world dumps it

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

What happens is what is happening now. The fed prints money and buys our bonds. This is happening to the tune of $80 billion a month.

What happens is we get maybe one more credit downgrade and then it goes bat****. With any luck we can get 2 more downgrades before they actually start to print money. Before, the term printing money meant writing off debt. If we hit that cliff and really start to print money, it is ALL over. Runaway inflation will set in place like is going on in Greece right now and it will take a full blown revolution to even start to get back on track.

We MUST reduce spending RIGHT now.
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I was always the long haired hippy and preached against the big brother, but always felt in the back of my mind that it can't happen. I have changed my position. It is now likely to happen. Drop your c##cks and grab your socks folks. We now have the makings of stuff to get really ugly.