Can you pay down the debt WITHOUT growing the "economy"?

[daveman]

Tell that to the military and to disaster victims you fucking moron.

Same thing holds true, you fucking moron. Government adds NOTHING of value. Government ALWAYS operates at a loss.

Put one dollar in, get less than one dollar out -- because you have to pay the people collecting, counting, and disbursing the dollars.

Then, by your accounting, every company operates at a loss because it costs to produce.

The reality of economics and accounting is that the governmemt is simply another company with a mandatory subscription price. It collects revenue, pays for labor and materials, and provides a product. Numerous products.

Honestly, daveman, the more I read your posts, the more I recognize that your concepts of economics, accounting, and government...your common sense, is off in la la land.

You should simply throw out everything you think you know and start over from the correct foundation. This foundation is that economics is about the production and redistribution of goods and services. It is not about money. Money is a social tool that we use to account for the redistribution of goods and services.

What do companies do that government does not do?

Build in profit.

It seems you forgot that reality of economics and accounting.

I repeat: Government adds nothing of value, and always operates at a loss.

This is undeniable.

 

[daveman]

Tell that to the military and to disaster victims you fucking moron.

Same thing holds true, you fucking moron. Government adds NOTHING of value. Government ALWAYS operates at a loss.

Put one dollar in, get less than one dollar out -- because you have to pay the people collecting, counting, and disbursing the dollars.

Nie to know you regard the military as producing nothing of value.

Wrong. By the appropriation process, the military is a vendor, providing a service to the government.

 

[Toro]

No, they are examples of the government providing a service. Since I actually pointed out that government services are not always disastrous, you pointing out other services that are less than disastrous doesn't actually make a new point.

So you're saying infrastructure, education, R&D, police and the military are all disastrous, just less so?

No, I am saying that infrastructure, education, and R&D are more efficient in the private sector. As for government force, I oppose that on principle, and you cannot show me a positive economic benefit just because the government wants to have a monopoly on force, while I can easily show a negative economic impact from government using force. (Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell?)

So you think there should be private, competing police forces to protect a city or a neighborhood then? You think there should be multiple air forces?

There's a reason why 99.9999% of all roads in the world are publicly financed. And it's not because of some silly ideological theory either. It's because of the uncertainty and risk that private interests cannot properly price and the unwillingness of individuals to pay, and the monopoly that arises from infrastructure.

Ideology is a poor substitute for empiricism. Ideologues often confuse the two. This is an example

As for government force, I oppose that on principle, and you cannot show me a positive economic benefit

Because the ideologue opposes government force, he believes that there is no positive economic benefit ever to government force. This is the trap of ideology that rejects empiricism. This mindset is different from an ideologue who believes that his form of social organization is best but may not always have the best outcomes.

I can show you one economic benefit of monopoly government force. There are many, but probably the most obvious example is the monopoly over currency. The 19th century was rife with bank failures, collapses, economic volatility and depression as multiple currencies circulated around the country in the form of banknotes, many of which were discounted. This was mitigated during the 20th century as this system was replaced with the Federal Reserve system. Since then, economic volatility has been curtailed, we have fewer recession, depressions are a thing of the past, and the banking system is subject to collapse every generation.

 

[Toro]

Same thing holds true, you fucking moron. Government adds NOTHING of value. Government ALWAYS operates at a loss.

Put one dollar in, get less than one dollar out -- because you have to pay the people collecting, counting, and disbursing the dollars.

Nie to know you regard the military as producing nothing of value.

Wrong. By the appropriation process, the military is a vendor, providing a service to the government.

You are, for the most part, employed by the US government if you are in the military. In the military, you are a government employee. If one says that the government creates nothing of value, then it is intellectually inconsistent to say that this statement doesn't apply to the military since roughly half of all military spending is direct compensation to individuals employed directly by the government.

If you want to say that the government creates less value than the private sector, or that parts of the government create no value, fair enough. But if you believe the military creates value, you cannot say that the government creates no value ever. That's not a serious statement.

 

[Spiderman]

Let's make this "simple".

Let's say you had a job and a car to get to that job.

Suddenly, you had a lot of bills. Medical. Home loan. Whatever.

So you cut back spending to pay those bills.

The car breaks down. You can't get to work. So you decide to stop all spending. Do you quit your job and not fix the car so you can "save" enough money to pay your bills?

Now, compare your car to infrastructure, job training and so on. If you don't invest in jobs, can you ever pay down the debt? Think about it.

Don't you big government types always tell us that you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household?

BTW the solution to your problem is to not pay anything else until the car is fixed because you can sleep in your car but you can't drive your house to work.

 

[expat_panama]

...you decide to stop all spending. Do you quit your job and not fix the car so you can "save" enough money to pay your bills? Now, compare your car to infrastructure, job training and so on...

...you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household...

Someone help me out here. Say I'm losing my job if I don't pay for car repairs. How can I be better off if the government confiscates my repair money and spends it on roads?

 

[itfitzme]

What do companies do that government does not do?

Build in profit.

It seems you forgot that reality of economics and accounting.

I repeat: Government adds nothing of value, and always operates at a loss.

This is undeniable.

No, dude. Private companies have a revenue stream called prices. They have expences im terms of wages and material costs. They also are leveraged and carry a debt load. The govenent has a revenue stream called taxes, fees, liscencing, etc. It has expences in wages and material costs. It also is leveraged and carries a debt load.

Most companies do not have a profit. Most businesses are small businesses and the revenues just equal expences.

The defict and debt is partly leverage, always for taking in less revenue than outlays

You never had any knowledge of economics, business amd accounting.

 

[itfitzme]

...you decide to stop all spending. Do you quit your job and not fix the car so you can "save" enough money to pay your bills? Now, compare your car to infrastructure, job training and so on...

...you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household...

Someone help me out here. Say I'm losing my job if I don't pay for car repairs. How can I be better off if the government confiscates my repair money and spends it on roads?

The error is in thinking that if you didn't have to pay taxes then you would he able to buy more stuff. The reality is the prices adjust constantly to the money in circulation. Sure, if only you didn't have to pay taxes then you would have more purchasing power then everyone else. This isn't how it works. When your taxes are lowered, so is everyone elses. Everyone then has more money for the same amount of goods being produced. For a few months, output may be stimulated but shortly, prices just rise to consume all monies.

 

[Spiderman]

...you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household...

Someone help me out here. Say I'm losing my job if I don't pay for car repairs. How can I be better off if the government confiscates my repair money and spends it on roads?

The error is in thinking that if you didn't have to pay taxes then you would he able to buy more stuff. The reality is the prices adjust constantly to the money in circulation. Sure, if only you didn't have to pay taxes then you would have more purchasing power then everyone else. This isn't how it works. When your taxes are lowered, so is everyone elses. Everyone then has more money for the same amount of goods being produced. For a few months, output may be stimulated but shortly, prices just rise to consume all monies.

So? Are you saying that it's better if the government takes more of our money instead of less so that prices will not rise?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The government is merely another entity through which economic activity flows. It's no different in this sense than a household or a corporation, etc.

It is fair to debate the efficacy of government spending, and whether or not it is more or less efficient than other entities. On aggregate, I don't believe it is. However, that doesn't mean everything the government does destroys value.

At its best, the government exists as a drain on the economy. At its worst, the government exists as an enemy of the economy. Even NASA, which is the best example of what government can accomplish, does more harm than good. For decades it was the only way to get anything into space, and it still exerts a negative impact on space exploration by demanding that all endeavors receive its approval before they can get off the ground. I see no evidence anywhere that the government ever exerts a positive effect on the economy.

Want to know why NASA wants to give approval of anything before it can get off the ground?

How good would it look if some private enterprise decided to launch a rocket without tracking it's trajectory and ended up blowing it up over the top of some city or schoolhouse?

I'd be willing to bet you'd ask why they blew up the city or the kids. NASA can help with that, because they can calculate the trajectories as well as give them a safe path for their rockets.

I mean.......................why else do we shoot things into space from places like Florida or Houston? It's so that if something goes wrong, the only people harmed are those on the flight.

Why else do you think that most flights (from the U.S.) are done over open water?

That is the FAA, not NASA, but thanks for proving you are not qualified to talk about the government.

 

[RKMBrown]

Same thing holds true, you fucking moron. Government adds NOTHING of value. Government ALWAYS operates at a loss.

Put one dollar in, get less than one dollar out -- because you have to pay the people collecting, counting, and disbursing the dollars.

Then, by your accounting, every company operates at a loss because it costs to produce.

The reality of economics and accounting is that the governmemt is simply another company with a mandatory subscription price. It collects revenue, pays for labor and materials, and provides a product. Numerous products.

Honestly, daveman, the more I read your posts, the more I recognize that your concepts of economics, accounting, and government...your common sense, is off in la la land.

You should simply throw out everything you think you know and start over from the correct foundation. This foundation is that economics is about the production and redistribution of goods and services. It is not about money. Money is a social tool that we use to account for the redistribution of goods and services.

What do companies do that government does not do?

Build in profit.

It seems you forgot that reality of economics and accounting.

I repeat: Government adds nothing of value, and always operates at a loss.

This is undeniable.

Worse, our Government measures success by how fast they burn our money. Our Government employees even waste money out of fear their budgets will be cut back the next year if they don't spend every dime of their budget. Budgets are generally based on allocations not need, and almost nothing in Government ever shrinks. Hell we have hundreds of government programs that all do the exact same thing under slightly different names each competing with the other government programs to see who can waste money faster.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So you're saying infrastructure, education, R&D, police and the military are all disastrous, just less so?

No, I am saying that infrastructure, education, and R&D are more efficient in the private sector. As for government force, I oppose that on principle, and you cannot show me a positive economic benefit just because the government wants to have a monopoly on force, while I can easily show a negative economic impact from government using force. (Nagasaki and Hiroshima ring a bell?)

So you think there should be private, competing police forces to protect a city or a neighborhood then? You think there should be multiple air forces?

Can you give me a good reason not to have private security forces? The government actually contracts out some of its security needs to private vendors, despite your insistence that the government always does it better. Fuck, the military even hires private vendors to guard military bases in the US. Why would they do that if the government is so efficient?

Is your problem paranoia?

By the way, when did I say the government shouldn't have a military? I just pointed out that pointing to government use of force to defend government use of force is stupid. At best, it is circular reasoning, at worst, it is justification for tyranny.

There's a reason why 99.9999% of all roads in the world are publicly financed. And it's not because of some silly ideological theory either. It's because of the uncertainty and risk that private interests cannot properly price and the unwillingness of individuals to pay, and the monopoly that arises from infrastructure.

No, it is because the government decided it wanted to control everything after one of the greatest engineering feats in modern times was privately financed successfully, making all government attempts to build a bridge across San Francisco bay look like the colossal failures they were. Just because governments mandate, by threat of force, that no one can compete with them does not mean no one will compete with them if they allow it.

Ideology is a poor substitute for empiricism. Ideologues often confuse the two. This is an example

I disagree. Empiricism is just an excuse used by some ideologues to justify the fact that they never listen to alternatives. A good example of that is your insistence that the government is the only solution to a lot of problems that the private sector does significantly better at. Almost everything you mentioned as something that the government does that adds value to the economy has competing examples in the private sector that does the same thing for less money, and better results. The only exception to my counter points are the things the government mandates that belong solely to its own realm.

As for government force, I oppose that on principle, and you cannot show me a positive economic benefit

Because the ideologue opposes government force, he believes that there is no positive economic benefit ever to government force. This is the trap of ideology that rejects empiricism. This mindset is different from an ideologue who believes that his form of social organization is best but may not always have the best outcomes.

Arguing in circles again? Doesn't that make you dizzy?

I can show you one economic benefit of monopoly government force. There are many, but probably the most obvious example is the monopoly over currency. The 19th century was rife with bank failures, collapses, economic volatility and depression as multiple currencies circulated around the country in the form of banknotes, many of which were discounted. This was mitigated during the 20th century as this system was replaced with the Federal Reserve system. Since then, economic volatility has been curtailed, we have fewer recession, depressions are a thing of the past, and the banking system is subject to collapse every generation.

Umm, what?

Wasn't there a series of major bank failures in the 20th century that led to a total collapse of the economy and the what is sometimes called the Great Depression? If the National Banking Act, which passed in 1863, prevented that, why did it still happen? And why was it worse than any previous bank failures?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Let's make this "simple".

Let's say you had a job and a car to get to that job.

Suddenly, you had a lot of bills. Medical. Home loan. Whatever.

So you cut back spending to pay those bills.

The car breaks down. You can't get to work. So you decide to stop all spending. Do you quit your job and not fix the car so you can "save" enough money to pay your bills?

Now, compare your car to infrastructure, job training and so on. If you don't invest in jobs, can you ever pay down the debt? Think about it.

Don't you big government types always tell us that you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household?

BTW the solution to your problem is to not pay anything else until the car is fixed because you can sleep in your car but you can't drive your house to work.

Don't you know better than to use common sense against big government hacks? Tsk, tsk.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

...you decide to stop all spending. Do you quit your job and not fix the car so you can "save" enough money to pay your bills? Now, compare your car to infrastructure, job training and so on...

...you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household...

Someone help me out here. Say I'm losing my job if I don't pay for car repairs. How can I be better off if the government confiscates my repair money and spends it on roads?

Because infrastructure is good, and...

Fuck, I can't think that dumb.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

...you can't compare the finances of a country to the finances of a household...

Someone help me out here. Say I'm losing my job if I don't pay for car repairs. How can I be better off if the government confiscates my repair money and spends it on roads?

The error is in thinking that if you didn't have to pay taxes then you would he able to buy more stuff. The reality is the prices adjust constantly to the money in circulation. Sure, if only you didn't have to pay taxes then you would have more purchasing power then everyone else. This isn't how it works. When your taxes are lowered, so is everyone elses. Everyone then has more money for the same amount of goods being produced. For a few months, output may be stimulated but shortly, prices just rise to consume all monies.

And, since taxes take money out of circulation, which means even less money to spend, yet prices do not drop because the government will then institute price controls to keep companies from cutting wages or laying off workers, because that takes money out of circulation, which will actually drive prices up.

Fortunately, the people that are actually in charge of the economy understand this.

 

[Freemason9]

LOL itfitzme . . .

Good luck discussing economics with these clowns. They REALLY DO compare federal "debt" with household debt, and that's why they have a flawed view of the mechanics.

The feds need to find other terminology to refer to government accounting measures. The words "debt" and "deficit" fucks up these guys every time.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

LOL itfitzme . . .

Good luck discussing economics with these clowns. They REALLY DO compare federal "debt" with household debt, and that's why they have a flawed view of the mechanics.

The feds need to find other terminology to refer to government accounting measures. The words "debt" and "deficit" fucks up these guys every time.

I have never seen anyone compare the federal debt with household debt. I have, however, seen them compare the federal budget, and the deficit, with a household budget. That makes your comment about confusing debt and deficit so poignant it hurts.

 

[RKMBrown]

LOL itfitzme . . .

Good luck discussing economics with these clowns. They REALLY DO compare federal "debt" with household debt, and that's why they have a flawed view of the mechanics.

The feds need to find other terminology to refer to government accounting measures. The words "debt" and "deficit" fucks up these guys every time.

Economists & Accountants that are anal retentive about how laymen use common financial terms are usually just blowhards without even an ounce of common sense.

 

[Toro]

No, it is because the government decided it wanted to control everything ...

Wrong. Your comment isn't serious. It's very, very silly. It's right up there with Marxists who say such similar vacuous bromides such as "Capitalism is always about exploitation."

That's what I mean about ideology. Ideology offers simple solutions that can be boiled down to sloganeering that belongs on bumper stickers rather than in serious debate. It requires one not to think nor to challenge one's own beliefs.

I disagree. Empiricism is just an excuse used by some ideologues to justify the fact that they never listen to alternatives.

Empiricism comes from the premise that we want to know what is true. Ideology comes from what you want to be true not if it actually is true. Ideologues dismiss empiricism when it contradicts their belief system. Empiricists change their beliefs light of contradictory information. Ideologues retain their beliefs despite contradictory information.

If you argue that "empiricism is an excuse for tyranny," that is pure ideology. However, if you believe in that your ideology should be retained despite your ideology generating empirically substandard results, that's one thing and is at least intellectually consistent. It's another to say that your ideology is everywhere and always right in everything, no matter what. That belongs in Kindergarten.

Arguing in circles again? Doesn't that make you dizzy?

lol

Not even close.

Saying that you are unable to differentiate between ideology and empirical results is not arguing in circles.

Umm, what?

Wasn't there a series of major bank failures in the 20th century that led to a total collapse of the economy and the what is sometimes called the Great Depression? If the National Banking Act, which passed in 1863, prevented that, why did it still happen? And why was it worse than any previous bank failures?

Depressions happened routinely in the 19th century. Banking collapses happened routinely in the 19th century. Economic volatility was much higher in the 19th century. That doesn't mean there are no recessions or no banking crises. We just have far fewer of them than we had in the past.

 

[daveman]

Nie to know you regard the military as producing nothing of value.

Wrong. By the appropriation process, the military is a vendor, providing a service to the government.

You are, for the most part, employed by the US government if you are in the military. In the military, you are a government employee. If one says that the government creates nothing of value, then it is intellectually inconsistent to say that this statement doesn't apply to the military since roughly half of all military spending is direct compensation to individuals employed directly by the government.

If you want to say that the government creates less value than the private sector, or that parts of the government create no value, fair enough. But if you believe the military creates value, you cannot say that the government creates no value ever. That's not a serious statement.

Fair enough. I'll accept that, and amend my statement:

With a few exceptions, government adds no value to the money it redistributes.