These figures are staggering and so avoidable. The economy is bleeding money. Republicans in Congress–all we need to do is to pass a clean CR. You can avoid all of this. The Democrats have already agreed to hold their noses and accept the sequestration figures reflected in the CR.. That’s a pretty big compromise.

Tea party republicans, stop wasting the American taxpayers hard earned cash.

67 Thoughts to “The Shutdown: What its all costing America”

  1. Pat.Herve

    You want to throw some FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) into any business planning – stopping job growth and investment – you are looking at it. Why would anyone want to try and expand at this moment. We are headed toward another self inflicted recession.

    Fox does not want to understand what it means to shutdown the government. They are now complaining about the families of fallen soldiers not getting the death benefit. It is a shame – we should all be outraged – but it is not in the law of what can be paid out. But Boehner made sure that the members gym is open.

    1. @Pat

      I am outraged….I am outraged that the morons they are propping up are inflicting this wound on our country.

      Fox needs to get over its stupidity or go off the air.

      I am plenty enraged…mainly at them and their heroes.

  2. What job growth? There hasn’t been job growth since 2008.

    Awwww…the gym is open so that Congress can take showers……where’s your snark about Obama’s golf course at Andrews being available?

    The Senate can pass the CR at any moment.
    Why is forcing individuals to suffer the ACA more important? Business get waivers, but constituents don’t? Why should individuals be forced to give personal information that can be used by law enforcement and audits so that they can get health care?

    f users are able to endure long page-loading delays, they are presented with the website’s privacy policy, a ubiquitous fine-print feature on websites that often go unread. Nevertheless, users are asked to check off a box that they agree to the terms. …

    The first is regarding personal information submitted with an application for those users who follow through on the sign up process all the way to the end. The policy states that all information to help in applying for coverage and even for making a payment will be kept strictly confidential and only be used to carry out the function of the marketplace. There is, however, an exception: “[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”

    http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/08/obamacare-info-can-be-used-for-law-enforcement-and-audit-activities-says-maryland-exchange/

    Yep…..that’s what I want. My medical and/or personal information that I send to a doctor or insurance company being shared without warrant.

    1. Do you really feel hotair.com is the authority or even a reliable source of information?

      Why is having ‘obamacare’ painful and causing suffering? THIS I have to hear! Suffering is losing everything you have because of huge medical costs that families will never be able to pay. Suffering is having to be stuck in a horrible job you don’t like while turning down ones you do like because you have a spouse or child with a pre-existing disease that prevents them from getting other coverage.

      I will await to hear why you feel Obamacare causes suffering.

  3. Steve Thomas

    Considering the recent survey demonstrating the edcuation and skills gap of US Adults, I am not surprised at the state we Americans find ourselves in: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/us/us-adults-fare-poorly-in-a-study-of-skills.html?hp&_r=0“)

    Harry Reid has taken over the Democrat side of the fiscal debate, and what boggles my mind is his latest demand is that the debt ceiling be raised by $1 TRILLION dollars, and a clean CR be passed at current sequestration spending levels. If the report in the NYT is any indication of the level of basic economic understanding, this would explain why the American public isn’t on the verge of a revolt. Let’s look at the numbers:

    2012 Federal revenue: $2,468,000,000,000
    2012 Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
    2012 New debt: $1,352,000,000,000
    National debt: $16,350,000,000,000
    Interest paid on National Debt in 2012: $220,000,000,000
    Proposed 2013 sequestration spending cuts: $ 85,000,000,000

    Since the average person apparently cannot fathom what a TRILLION dollars is, let’s put our country’s financial state in terms a householder might possibly understand:

    2012 Household income: $24,680
    2012 Household expenditures: $38,200
    2012 Credit card debt: $13,520
    Outstanding balance on the credit card: $163,500
    Annual interest on credit card debt: $2,200
    Proposed 2013 spending cuts: $850

    To quote our President, when he was Senator Obama, setting up for his run for the Oval Office:

    “Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.

    The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like

    bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.

    But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.

    Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.

    Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

    I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

  4. Pat.Herve

    @Cargosquid
    Yes, the golf course at Andrews is open – it is funded by user fees (at least that is what they claim). I am not even sure who operates it. But I think I can be sure that Obama did not order that it be open.

    The waivers are totally misunderstood – I do not think you even know what they have been. There have been waivers to allow some mini-med plans to exist for another year and for Congressional staffers to still get a Gov subsidy (as they get now).

    So, you want people to apply for a possible subsidy and have no audit capabilities or control over it?? How does one possibly get rid of waste and fraud if one cannot audit the process. Or is it just something to gripe over and make an issue where there is no issue?

    Your medical information will not be shared without a warrant – you do not have to provide any medical info to get the insurance. And your medial information is protected by HIPAA and will not be shared without your consent.

    Part of the problem is that so many people (who should know better) regurgitate misinformation and then the bloggers take it up and distort it. Many of the pundits will allow a guest contributor to out right lie – and never correct them – allowing the myths to perpetuate. Many of the biggest complainers do not even understand what/why they are unhappy about – just taking items out of context to bitch about it – like the audit capability.

  5. Steve Thomas

    Here’s one of the easiest to understand explanations of the hypocrisy of hyperbole being dished by the administration, the Senate Majority Leader, and the MSM:

    http://bearingdrift.com/2013/10/09/the-lies-about-the-debt-limit/

  6. Rick Bentley

    “what boggles my mind is his latest demand is that the debt ceiling be raised by $1 TRILLION dollars”

    Haven’t we all noticed that it’s impossible to compromise in reasonable fashion with the post Tea Party GOP? As soon as you “give” on one thing, they are immediately yammering for more. I assume this is a negotiating position rather than a real attempt to drive the debt up.

  7. Rick Bentley

    “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. ”

    I submit to you that charlatans like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are not the solution to this problem.

    I also submit to you that if we can get the cost of health care down in America, towards the level paid by our peer nations, that it’ll reduce debt and increase jobs at a level greater than anything else we could conceive of.

  8. Rick Bentley

    Obamacare seems to me like a much more sensible plan to attack debt than GWB’s best plan was. His grand vision was an America full of illegal immigrants starting to pay into Medicare and Social Security, keeping them afloat for a while.

    The idea of using government power to reduce health care costs didn’t have to turn into a partisan issue. It shouldn’t be one. It seems amoral to me that it became one.

  9. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    Rick,

    In your response to the quote above, and your attack on Cruz and Paul, you do realize that the quote you referenced is not mine, but Obama’s. This is a direct quote from a speech he gave on the Senate floor in 2006, when the Democrats were opposing raising the debt ceiling. But now that he has the credit card, he wants the checkbook too.

    Also, I disagree with your assertion that the answer to runaway federal spending is MORE federal spending. The GAO projects ACA will add almost 7 TRILLION to the deficit. I guess SML Reid should ask for a bigger bump in the credit limit.

    Right now, the Treasury is taking in enough money to service the current debt, so there is no danger of an immenent default…provided there is a reduction in deficit spending. If current spending levels are maintained, the deficit and the debt will increase, and this problem will only get worse. So the governement has two tools that don’t involve monetizing debt; they can raise taxes, or they can cut spending. Considering these political animals are thinking about the next election (both sides), I can’t see either of these tools being used. In otherwords:

    Once our OUTGO, exceeds our INCOME, our UPKEEP willl be our DOWNFALL.

    And considering the report I referenced in my first comment, I have come to the conclusion that the American economy is doomed. Most folks haven’t figured it out yet. I’m sure the panem et circenses being offered up will placate most until the bottom falls out. When the dollar has been devalued through QE and over-monetizing of the debt to the point where the nations dump it as a reserve currency, the real ride will begin. All the ACA, QE, and Bind issues in the world won’t stop that dive.

    And before you think I’m letting the GOP at the Federal level off-the-hook for their part in this mess, I am not. They contributed to this as well by further expanding government when they were in charge, albeit in smaller increments. Really though, we can try to find fault with everyone, but the true fault lies with us. Afterall, in a democracy the people deserve the government that they get.

  10. @Rick Bentley
    Compete with other nations? You mean…like Britain and France?

    Greece? Germany? The countries getting ready to default in Europe? How is Britain’s budget?
    Their health care costs aren’t down..they’ve just been transferred to the tax payer.

  11. @Steve Thomas
    Well said.

    Doomed.

    What cannot be sustained forever WILL NOT be sustained forever.

  12. Rick Bentley

    Yeah, debt’s bad. That fact doesn’t make me sympathetic to the GOP’s current antics, because they don’t have any plan to reduce it. Even at the current time, government shut down, they have no particular demand or goal except to defund “Obamacare”. In other words, to return us to a status quo of mounting debt.

    Take the partisan framework and the ad campaigns away, you might share my hope that by transforming medicine in America we can reduce costs, and eventually have a dramatic impact on debt. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t find this to be a possibility. I can’t imagine why you would think we can or should be paying 2 or 3 times as much as other countries for the same procedures and medicines – that this is our birthright.

    “I have come to the conclusion that the American economy is doomed”

    Totally disagree. Weath/money represent tangible things. And technology is a multiplier of those things. It’s the reason that over time, despite older people grumbling that the people younger than them aren’t tough enough and don’t work hard and have lost values, the world has become a better and better place consistently for thousands of years.

  13. Rick Bentley

    Yeah, debt is bad. Which doesn’t justify the current level of negativity and terrorist politics.

    Beyond partisan bickering and political ad campaigns, “Obamacare” is in large part an effort to eventually get medical costs in America down towards levels found in other countries. This would reduce our debt immensely. Why could this not happen? Why would you think it’s implicitly our birthright to pay 3 or 4 times as much as the rest of the world for the same medical procedures?

  14. Rick Bentley

    Yeah, debt is bad … which doesn’t justify the current level of negativity and terrorist politics.

    Beyond partisan bickering and political ad campaigns, “Obamacare” is in large part an effort to eventually get medical costs in America down towards levels found in other countries. This would reduce our debt immensely. Why could this not happen? Why would you think it’s implicitly our birthright to pay 3 or 4 times as much as the rest of the world for the same medical procedures?

  15. Rick Bentley

    “I have come to the conclusion that the American economy is doomed”

    I disagree. Wealth/money represents real, tangible things. Technology is a multiplier of those things. That’s why the world has become a better and better place over the course of thousands of years, despite each older generation proclaiming doom and gloom because the younger generations have “lost touch with values” and so forth.

    The Chinese, Korean governments cannot create a Google. Or an Apple. Or a Microsoft. We are leading the way forward into the new world, and will continue to do so.

  16. Rick Bentley

    We appear doomed because no one’s been driving the train for many years. With some leadership we can make our nation better. The fact that it upsets the medical industry to the point that they fund ad campaigns against “Obamacare” doesn’t faze me. The fact that the Republican party claims that Obamacare will be the death of western civilization, which I remember hearing in the past about Clinton’s 1994 budget and about numerous other things that drove republicans into a tizzy, does not worry me either.

  17. @Rick Bentley
    Of course you’re not worried.

    YOU actually seem to believe that progressive policies and increased spending will lower costs.

    You seem to be of the opinion that because the stated “intention” of Obamacare is to lower costs…. everything is just fine. Intentions trump everything.
    It will not lower costs. It will add to the debt and to the deficit. It will add to gov’t abuse.

    The STATED intention is to lower SOMEDBODY’S cost. Whose cost isn’t stated. I submit that the intention is to entrap yet more Americans into gov’t dependency and increase control over American lives. create chaos, and build a further narrative for single payer. We’ll see which “intention” plays out.

    1. unless you turn down medicare and social security you will end up right where the rest of us do–single payer. Medicare.

      Do you really believe that the unstated goal of President Obama is to entrap more Americans into government dependency to gain control over American lives? Please tell me no. That is so paranoid. Why would he want to create chaos?

      What if I suggested that you and the body of knowledge that you embrace was being controlled over the Koch brothers? What would you say to that?

      Maybe they just want all you tea parties to vote to lower taxes so they will be even wealthier.

      I can even understand covert political thinking to increase wealth but to cause chaos? That’s the stuff science fiction is made of.

  18. Rick Bentley

    No … what I believe is that as the government becomes more involved in paying the medical bills, they will be able to cap costs more effectively than insurance companies are able to.

    It will almost surely result in reduced costs – as it does in the rest of the world.

    I know it will take some MENTAL ENERGY and some PATIENCE to get such a thing working, it’s not one of these feeble simple-minded solutions that people on the right tend to favor. (“If we just reduce taxes, it’ll grow the economy and lower debt”. etc. etc.) Such is life. You have to work at things to make them better. yes, even if it means that the dreaded “government” needs to play a role.

  19. Steve Thomas

    “Obamacare” is in large part an effort to eventually get medical costs in America down towards levels found in other countries.”

    But in doing so, we are reducing the overall quality of care to the same levels as those countries. And “eventually” better get here before the bills come due. Even MSNBC and the WaPo are reporting on people’s premiums skyrocketing.

    You can stake the entire fiscal future on “technology” and “healthcare”. I’ll stick to sound principles like balancing my checkbook.

  20. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    “Yeah, debt is bad … which doesn’t justify the current level of negativity and terrorist politics.”

    Just as the rich rule the poor, the borrower is slave to the lender.

  21. Rick Bentley

    “But in doing so, we are reducing the overall quality of care to the same levels as those countries. ”

    I’m okay with some reduction in “quality”, i.e. endless prolonging at end of life. Because I understand how directly it correlates to debt.

  22. Rick Bentley

    “But in doing so, we are reducing the overall quality of care to the same levels as those countries. ”

    Yeah, I’m okay with that. You’re not? You want to keep paying out so much money on end-of-life care, while debt stacks up as a direct result?

  23. Rick Bentley

    Steve : “But in doing so, we are reducing the overall quality of care to the same levels as those countries. ”

    Some of that does need to happen. We can’t keep spending money that we don’t have on end-of-life medicine.

    Cargo : “I submit that the intention is to entrap yet more Americans into gov’t dependency and increase control over American lives.”

    A. We’re already dependent on the medical and pharmaceutical industries. And going heavily into debt being so.

    B. I believe that when this is said and done, everyone – even YOU – will come to understand that the government’s giving a damn about it will enable us more rights and lower prices when it comes to the medical care that 99.999% of us utilize.

  24. Rick Bentley

    “I’ll stick to sound principles like balancing my checkbook.”

    Kind of a silly way to look at things, I think. Whether you keep your checkbook balanced or not, you are likely to end your life in a hospital bed, high on morphine, racking up huge medical bills that you can’t pay. They will be paid by an insurance company, or by our government. And you’ll rack up debt doing it. It’s an insane status quo and the elephant in the room that the GOP has been ignoring for years.

  25. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    “Wealth/money represents real, tangible things.”

    Ha! Our money is a fiat currency that only has value because the parties agree it has value. When one or more parties decide it doesn’t have value, then it’s just wampum.

    Tangible assets like gold? How much gold is backing our currency these days? Less and less each time the printing presses are fired up, for another round of QE. QE and artifically low interest rates are the only things proping up Wall Street. The markets are based on perceptions.

    The Chinese don’t have to create Google or Microsoft. They’ll just buy them one day. Or better yet, cash in their treasuries, drive the market into the tank, and then snap these companies up for a song.

  26. Rick Bentley

    “Even MSNBC and the WaPo are reporting on people’s premiums skyrocketing.”

    Mine went down. How many people here have seen their rates for next year? I saw mine for the first time yesterday; I work for a very large employer, and my rate went down.

  27. Rick Bentley

    I don’t share your fatalism, Steve. The world is changing very fast. We drive the technology, and drive the change. The Chinese can’t buy it.

    I am hearing that some analysts think the Chinese economy is about to burst its bubble. In point of fact despite our issues and despite our general unhappiness with our economy, ours is sounder than most at present.

    http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/09/news/economy/china-asia-apec/index.html

  28. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley

    Maybe you plan to die in a bed totally dependent on the government. I don’t, and have made provisions to ensure the likelihood of that not happening…and no one else is paying for it either.

  29. Rick Bentley

    I don’t know how or why anyone would think that a people whose alphabet doesn’t lend itself to quick reading/writing could overtake us, in the digital age. They can’t, they won’t. We are the people building the new world.

  30. Rick Bentley

    “Maybe you plan to die in a bed totally dependent on the government. I don’t”

    Yet – it may well happen.

    “and have made provisions to ensure the likelihood of that not happening…and no one else is paying for it either.”

    Most people don’t have those means. Don’t hate us just because we’re poor, Steve.

  31. Rick Bentley

    The things that are real, that money is based on :

    1. Physical materials
    2. Finished physical products
    3. Land
    4. Information – and this is increasingly a new source of wealth, that introduces volatility into financial markets because its behavior and future value is not well understood yet.
    5. Legally binding contracts, to include patents
    6. Perceived or anticipated future value of the above 5 things

    If worry and angst were worth money in and of themselves, Republicans and conservatives would be rich beyond belief. But still unhappy and prone to rail on about the impending death of society, I think.

  32. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    “I am hearing that some analysts think the Chinese economy is about to burst its bubble. In point of fact despite our issues and despite our general unhappiness with our economy, ours is sounder than most at present.”

    And there are just as many analysts who predict that we have until March 2014 to get our fiscal house in order, before the curtain goes up on the final act. ACA isn’t classified as a solution in these analysis. It is listed as a liability. A combination of spending cuts, selected tax increases, plus reforms to all of the unfunded liabilities (70 TRILLION and climbing) is the only perscription for the bleeding. Economic growth? Where is it? Job Growth? Where is it? You expect a return to prosperity if you want to. Me, I’m preparing for the storm.

  33. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    “The things that are real, that money is based on :

    1. Physical materials
    2. Finished physical products
    3. Land
    4. Information – and this is increasingly a new source of wealth, that introduces volatility into financial markets because its behavior and future value is not well understood yet.
    5. Legally binding contracts, to include patents
    6. Perceived or anticipated future value of the above 5 things ”

    Didn’t help the Wiemar Republic, and their currency was backed by the land. Doesn’t help when the EPA won’t let you take the “Physical Materials” out of the ground. Doesn’t help when thousands of makers of “finished goods” close their doors each day. Information? Really? You mean I can pay my lightbill with the stuff I have on a flash-drive? Wow!

    and number 6, you prove my point: Percieved or anticipated value. This is the stock market. The least little change in perception and “Boom”.

  34. Rick Bentley

    “Me, I’m preparing for the storm.”

    Okay. I hope you’re not cheering for it though.

    “Information? Really? You mean I can pay my lightbill with the stuff I have on a flash-drive? Wow!”

    You’re not understanding or acknowledging the world’s current transformation and our leading role in it. It’s a big subject and I’m not a good candidate to summarize it quickly.

    Bottom line, information has value. Technologies like hadoop that facilitate storage and analysis of it are changing the world. As with the internet circa the late 90’s, which simplified software development (i.e. removed the necessity for rebuilding communications layers in products) the world markets know that there are huge changes in play, and that the world is being transformed, but their/our inability to predict short-term or even long-term winners and losers in this is causing market volatility. All across the world.

  35. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley
    “Most people don’t have those means. Don’t hate us just because we’re poor, Steve.”

    Rick, this a very ignorant statement. Very ignorant. Ask around. I’m no rich guy. What I did do is start spinning down my debt, without taking on any new debt, even after taking a 50% paycut in 2009, which is still in effect. Living BELOW our means is how we did this. Refusing to mortgage our kid’s future is how we did this. Like Dave Ramsey says “If broke is normal, I choose to be weird”. I invite you to come take one of the Financial Peace University courses I facilitate at Chapel Springs Church. I do this as a volunteer.

  36. Rick Bentley

    50 years ago, investors knew what to buy to stay rich. Now, they don’t. An asset like the Washington Post, or Blockbuster Video, goes from boom to bust in a decade or less. Quite naturally this leads to economic instability.

    That’s not the only reason for the recession in 2008. The housing market was a big part of that. But it’s a big part of it, that’s not well understood.

    1. I would say we could pretty much sum up that unholy matrimony of the banking industry and the housing market as being the major cause of the bust. Somewhere in there the demon derivatives have a place. Bad packaging of bad product to unsuspecting investors.

  37. Rick Bentley

    Okay, and I shouldn’t have used the word hate in it either, even in jest. But your statement deserved a poke of some sort. Surely you understand that you’re one brain cancer diagnosis away from possible bankruptcy? There’s no one in America who’s not “rich” that can anticpate paying for their health care if their health goes bad.

  38. Steve Thomas

    ‘You’re not understanding or acknowledging the world’s current transformation and our leading role in it. It’s a big subject and I’m not a good candidate to summarize it quickly.”

    Rick, I work in the IT world. I understand the hype around “Big Data”. My specialty is Information Lifecycle Management. I can give you a class on data valuation. I was part of a team that wrote the ILM policy for the largest retailer in the world, when I worked for IBM. Because I work in the industry, I don’t fall for the hype. I know what is real, and what came out of some marketing major’s head. My point is just like the oil Obama won’t let us take out of the ground only has tangible value when extracted, refined, and sold, Information only has value if it can be leveraged to extract a dollar from a consumer of the data. This isn’t going to prop up our currency, or keep the Chinese from dumping the dollar as a reserve. When this happens, we must convert to whatever the new reserve is, to pay for our imports. All the ones and zeros on a hard disk spinning in some datacenter has nothing to do with the price we pay to import all the finished goods, oil and everything else we no longer make for ourselves.

  39. Rick Bentley

    The fact that we collectively can’t get our brains wrapped around the nature of information technology is a factor in the all the angst and bad feelings in America, even as most people’s lives get better all the time.

    We were raised to do well in a manufacturing age. Develop a work ethic and don’t spend too much money and you’ll be okay; the world you retire in will have roughly the same parameters to it as the one you entered the workforce in. But it’s a different world out there now. Markets are more volatile and will continue to be so, as we continue to refine financial prediction models so as to be able to more effectively estimate and project the value of information-based investments. Which are a primary area of investment in today’s world.

    A good primer of the financial value of information is http://www.amazon.com/Big-Data-Revolution-Transform-Think/dp/0544002695

  40. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley

    “Surely you understand that you’re one brain cancer diagnosis away from possible bankruptcy?”

    One of the sacrifices we’ve made to live below our means is to sacrifice some standard of living in order to secure long-term care and disability insurance, life insurance, etc. I don’t plan on dying in a VA hospital, which is a benefit I’ve earned.

  41. Rick Bentley

    Not just Big Data, but the ability to produce software quickly, is keeping us ahead of the world. We can respond to events, and I’m including military events and contingencies, much more effectively and quickly than anyone else.

    The data’s important. China and India are full of potential software engineers, but with no data to mine to figure out the future.

    We produce oil and the Chinese don’t (at least, I don’t think they do). We have a military presence in the Middle East; the Chinese don’t. They have no real tangible asset that we need to fear.

    If they dump the dollar, we import less. It will hurt them more than us. It’d be a darned good thing in a lot of ways IMO if we had more manufacturing going on in America.

    1. China has people and lots of them, mostly expendable in the eyes of their government. Just something to consider.

  42. Steve Thomas

    “But it’s a different world out there now.”

    Okay, you wait for Star Trek, I’ll wait for Mad Max. As far as your “Primer” on the Data Revolution, I’ll pass. I read this stuff every day; Gartner and CNET. CompTIA and IEEE. Cisco and IBM whitepapers I talk about it every day with my clients. Like I said, “Data” and “Technology” is my profession, which is why I don’t buy the hype. Been through the dot.com bust. Road the rollercoaster in telecom. Did my time at IBM commuting by plane to Betonville AK and Detroit, to talk ILM, which data valuation forms the foundation. Been there. Done that. Still doing it. That’s why I’m not betting the farm on it. Much like the derrivatives market, much of what you are talking about is smoke.

    “They have no real tangible asset that we need to fear.”

    Owning 10% of our debt seems like a pretty tangible asset, if I apply your definition. No, they don’t produce oil, they do produce coal, and aren’t afraid to burn it. Last year, they produced 700 metric tons of steel. We produced 88. Oh, and if head on down to the Globe & Laurel, just outside of Quantico, or to the National Museum of the Marine Corps you might have the honor of speaking with one of the “Chosin Few”. The Chicoms have a huge tangible asset: People and they can put a pretty big military presence someplace where they didn’t before, and this is very fearsome asset. The Chosin Few learned this the hard way: Up to their ankles in snow, and up to their necks in Chicom bodies.

  43. @Moon-howler
    If the system fails… more gov’t control is obviously needed and single payer is advanced.

    That is why he needs chaos. Cloward Piven IS a political strategy and its being used now. Crisis demands action…thus more power to the central authority. Both parties use it. Obama grew up on it.

    What if you said that it was being controlled by the Koch bros.? I’d point and laugh at you.

    And as for me ending up on Medicare…you can imagine my excitement at being forced to use the gov’t for my health care. I’m not excited NOW because I’m familiar with the VA.

    @Steve Thomas
    Can you recommend a good way to evaluate long term health care insurance, etc? We need some before we get older.

  44. Steve Thomas

    @Cargosquid

    Cargo, this is a good place to start:

    https://www.daveramsey.com/elp/long-term-care-insurance/

    Dave Ramsey doesn’t receive any compensation from these providers, and neither do I. The are endorsed because they are highly ethical.

  45. Rick Bentley

    “Much like the derrivatives market, much of what you are talking about is smoke.”

    But some of it is transforming the world.

  46. Steve Thomas

    @Rick Bentley

    “Okay. I hope you’re not cheering for it though.”

    If I were, Mrs T and I wouldn’t be working and sacrificing to become debt-free, paying life insurance and long-term insurance premiums, socking away money to fund my daughter’s college education. Nope, we’d be putting everything into gold, spam, ammo, and scotch. We’d be buying an old missle silo and converting into a bunker. If we were doing the latter instead of the former, we’d be cheering for it, just to laugh at everyone who didn’t.

    No, I envsion something less apocalyptic. A slide into “second ratedness” like the UK after WWII, except bigger with better dental habits. I do think we’ll experience something along the lines of Argentina in 2001, which precipitates the slide. Then again, I am a practicing Christian, and looking at what’s going on in the mid-east these days, who knows. However, “Rapture” is not my retirement plan.

  47. Steve Thomas

    Steve Thomas :@Cargosquid
    Cargo, this is a good place to start:
    https://www.daveramsey.com/elp/long-term-care-insurance/
    Dave Ramsey doesn’t receive any compensation from these providers, and neither do I. The are endorsed because they are highly ethical.

    And our premiums are low, because we bought early. Earlier than most.

  48. Rick Bentley

    We’re driving the technological change in the world. And we’re still the land of opportunity. I’ve been hearing my whole life that we were sliding behind the likes of China and Japan, for one reason or another but it hasn’t happened yet. And I don’t expect that it will.

    1. When I was a whippersnapper we were falling behind the Russians….a fate worse than death.

      When communism died, I knew something or someone else was in for it!!!!

  49. Kelly_3406

    @Cargosquid

    Cargo, nobody likes a good shot at Obama more than me, but the Andrews golf course is not really an issue. The base is open, doing its job, and all facilities there appear to be up and running.

  50. Steve Thomas

    Well looky here! Credit ratings company Moodys is saying our President is a serial-mispeaker….and the WaPo is reporting it!

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-the-shutdown-4/?hpid=z2#c1e3ada3-dc00-41d8-92cb-327c5c814d82

    1. The deficit is less. I just wonder who should get the credit for that?

Comments are closed.