zorg wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 9:51 am I have to ask, is this some kind of partisan Zoomer YOLO thing that I'm out of the loop on? Because the hubris of thinking that USA is has limitless money sounds like a wildly dangerous fantasy. Corporations fail, Empires fall. Have you ever visited Detroit? But it doesn't need to be a catastrophic failure for this to have a terrible knock-on effect for the quality of life for citizens. The fall of Rome was actually like hundreds of years of slow but steady decline. Sure you can sell assets to pay the bills.

One thing you can be guaranteed is that it will be YOU (or your children) who will be left holding the bag. We're already paying for it right now.

zorg wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 9:51 am I have to ask, is this some kind of partisan Zoomer YOLO thing that I'm out of the loop on? Because the hubris of thinking that USA is has limitless money sounds like a wildly dangerous fantasy.

zorg wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:36 am Why doesn't the UK just print up a bunch of money to pay for the faltering NHS? Because there is a REAL UNDERLYING COST that has to come from somewhere.

Curry Pervert wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 6:06 pm

zorg wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:36 am Why doesn't the UK just print up a bunch of money to pay for the faltering NHS? Because there is a REAL UNDERLYING COST that has to come from somewhere.

It's a political decision, not a fiscal one.

The UK was in a shit state financially after WWII but still managed to create the NHS, the welfare state and embark on the biggest social housing project ever undertaken.

• when the government takes loans it pays more for things than they cost

• the poor pay the costs for government spending through taxation, reduced services, and erosion of public offerings

• the rich get paid more money by loaning the government the money

• the government realizes it's overspent and it takes out more loans to service it's existing loans or fund IOUs

• return to the first step but factor in the compounding costs

Gramsci wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2024 10:47 am

RIP David Graeber. A great public intellectual.

zorg wrote: Fri Sep 27, 2024 11:34 am The UK won WWII. It was riding high on a combination of public euphoria, German restitution payments, plundered German patents, and various other spoils of war. It wasn't some kind of miraculous economic formula but rather the correct bet paying out as expected. You can keep posting all these things, but they just back up what I said in the first place. Simply put:

• when the government takes loans it pays more for things than they cost

• the poor pay the costs for government spending through taxation, reduced services, and erosion of public offerings

• the rich get paid more money by loaning the government the money

• the government realizes it's overspent and it takes out more loans to service it's existing loans or fund IOUs

• return to the first step but factor in the compounding costs

This was the case of the Chicago Parking meter example, and there is no deviation from this in any circumstance I can think of except if you win a war or have some kind of boom in industry. Ultimately, I don't see how steps 2 or 3 are good things. Do I care if we can't buy bombs or new cop cars? No. Do I care if I can't afford quality medical care? Yes. I leave it up for you to decide, where the cuts will happen.