Thread in which the world laughs at America

[KrazyHorse]

Then you sell assets.

JM

The US doesn't have close to enough assets to cover its debts. Don't make childish suggestions before you look at the numbers.

[C0ckney]

france will probably be downgraded in the relatively near future.

[Hauldren Collider]

We could very quickly solve a lot of problems by simply repealing the new healthcare bill and raising retirement age to life expectancy.

Switching medicaid over to vouchers and phasing out medicare would do a lot of good, too.

[notyoueither]

Then you sell assets.

JM

Or lose your house, which many people did in the 80's.

[Dinner]

Zevico, just stop. You're being extremely retarded in an attempt to excuse obvious criminal acts.

[Dinner]

We could very quickly solve a lot of problems by simply repealing the new healthcare bill and raising retirement age to life expectancy.

Switching medicaid over to vouchers and phasing out medicare would do a lot of good, too.

Those are some of the worst right wing proposals out there (except for one of them). 1) If we converted medicare to vouchers then old folks who got seriously ill simply wouldn't get the health care they need to survive; which was the sole reason for medicare being in existence to begin with. 2) Insurance companies would refuse to cover old people at any price for the simple reason that old people get sick a lot and so are money losers; that was why medicare was created and that fact is still true so privatizing medicare is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. 3) Repealing the health care law would make over all costs, including costs to the government, shoot up even faster according to the G.A.O. so that's three fails in a row for you. 4) Indexing retirement age to life expectancy actually makes sense so it's nice to see you sometimes have decent things to say even if it's only 1/4th of the time.

The proposal Republicans made last year was to give the elderly $40,000 to buy health care with and then tell them they're on their own after that. This is despite the fact that most insurance companies have a policy of simply refusing to cover anyone of medicare age because they get sick to often, as old folks tend to do. That means even with their $40,000 voucher most of them would not be able to buy insurance on the open market so they'd have to "self insure" which simply means pay as they go if s/he gets sick. The average cost of a heart attack is over $200,000 and if the victim is elderly it routinely costs double that. How far do you think that $40,000 will go in such a case? The hard truth is it wouldn't last even a single day if someone got seriously ill.

[Jon Miller]

The US doesn't have close to enough assets to cover its debts. Don't make childish suggestions before you look at the numbers.

Obviously assets of nations take different forms than the assets of individuals or corporations.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Viewing the future tax stream as an asset is just as idiotic as viewing future expenditures on various programs as a liability.

The US has borrowed a ****load of money. It is paying low interest on that debt now, but it could easily pay 2 or 3 times as much on that debt in the near future. If that happened, it could face a debt crisis.

Now, the market views that as unlikely. In particular, what distinguishes the US from other countries with a similar debt to gdp ratio is the belief that the body politic in the US is more likely to view honoring its debts as being of paramount importance.

But blithely claiming that the US should continue to borrow because rates are low betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of basic finance.

BTW, going back to your view of tax streams as an asset: guess what happens to the value of future cashflows when interest rates go up?

[Zevico]

Zevico, just stop. You're being extremely retarded in an attempt to excuse obvious criminal acts.

Proof of wrongdoing has not been offered. The interest group's Republican political persuasion is not proof of wrongdoing, and nor is the fact that these ballots were sent to Democratic districts. That provides a possible motive but that doesn't mean that the interest group's organisers necessarily had that motive in mind. Nor is the fact that the ballots are being forwarded to the group's address relevant: interest groups regularly do this in order to compile voter information. The 'defence' argument, simply put, is that the wrong date was a typographical error. None of the facts raised positively disprove that defence. Positive proof would have to come in the way of witness testimony, or credible documentation (e.g. an email where the interest group organisers reveal their dastardly plot). Your passionate dislike of Republicans and the Republican party aside, the allegations put forward, based on the facts as we know them right now, are simply speculation.

[Barnabas]

From my experience, as an Argentine, the standards and poor rankings are something like a popularity contest influenced by lobbyng. I don't think they ever look at the hard numbers to see how problematic the debt is for some country.
We were a model country when our debt was huge, and after our crisis, default, and renegotiation, we are something like pariahs, even if we don't have a problem paying our debt, with real dollars from exports, we can't get indebted to pay back debt.

[notyoueither]

When does the financial world go kablooy?

[Aeson]

I think it already did. I'm out of money

(how about you?)

[notyoueither]

I've still got some beer cans.

[KrazyHorse]

markets down 2-4% across Asia. Futures in US down 2.5%

[Guynemer]

Let the good times roll?