Honestly don´t know if either party can cut the deficit. Being the fiat currency leading to easy lending leading to debt to fund military adventures leading to collapse is the pattern of all empires throughout history.
That said, my experience is the Democrats do at least theoretically try to raise or maintain taxes and spend money on social programs and the Republicans, while running on the deficit, always cut taxes as much as possible while usually raising military spending. And, as we learned in Iran, our military spending is mostly a wealth redistribution scheme, but upwards (and, notably, backwards from the future).
And I don't even know if can fault individual politicians or parties. Cutting spending will definitely lose you votes. Stumping for liberal politicians I heard a lot from people involved in the defense industry.
The only way not to lose votes is to tax the rich, but only theoretically, because then you have to deal with a shitstorm of bad press from the rich-owned media and that will swing people against you; at least until the rich are well and truly despised by the populace, which we are getting to.
This probably ends in a Greek/Argentina-style collapse.
If the US was truly in a jam we’d start devaluing our currency more to pay towards the deficit. That’s not a good idea at all, but if we’re not raising taxes on corporations to pay towards the deficit then there really aren’t that many other options.
The US would have a hard time actually defaulting on its loans, imo. If the population growth stagnated enough that not being able to cover the interest became a concern, then the US could make it easier for people to work in the country to help grow the economy instead.
The easiest and most logical route is taxing corporations more, not even necessarily needing to cut current spending. It’s definitely a hurdle like you mention due to the media environment.
If the US was truly in a jam we’d start devaluing our currency more to pay towards the deficit.
That would be Argentina.
The Greek response was austerity--cut government spending to the bone and raise taxes, a sure economy killer that just drives what little economy you have underground.
If we're at the point of economic stagnation that we can't cover our debt, we likely will also have high unemployment; importing workers wouldn't make political or economic sense.
I’m not as read on Argentina’s financial situation to comment specifics, but the US wouldn’t necessarily have to heavily devalue the currency to the point of hyperinflation. The US could still do hyperinflation, but it’d hurt trade even more as well as investor confidence; plus it’d probably piss off a lot of the people living in the US when suddenly their fixed income gets them less goods and services.
Cutting all spending is definitely tied with hyper inflation as one of the worst options, imo. Especially since you’re paying into a failed system and literally seeing no personal or societal benefit from your tax dollars.
Imo, it’s hard to say if not being able to cover debts would lead to high unemployment on its own. As it stands we’re not currently covering all our debts, but still promising to pay them back.
If it was announced now that there’s no projected way for us to cover the growing interest of US debt, when so many companies are already cutting jobs to bolster short term profits/projections, then there would be high unemployment.
Realistically, the government would have to find ways to make up the money it’s burning though if it doesn’t want the blowback from stopping spending. Growing industry through incentivizing more workers to come to the US and increasing domestic manufacturing is one of the ways the US could grow its economy. Doing something like that though would require shifting political framing to start seeing the benefits of bringing in more laborers to the US.
From the situation in Argentina: Citizens getting pissed off is not preventative, though after their last experience with hyperinflation, Argentina decided to try austerity this time around.
In the US context, cutting spending would also mean cutting significant amount of defense jobs, which would boost unemployment.
And if you have a starving, homeless and unemployed population, you don't need immigration to drive wages down for low skill labor; I don't understand why you keep bringing up immigration as a solution.
And losing manufacturing jobs is another classic part of the imperial hollowing out of a culture, along with increase debt and military adventurism...
I would like to believe that those in power would take other preventative measures before a situation like in Argentina happened here in the US. Maybe in five years, assuming the US gets a bit more logical, then that option would be completely out of the question.
Large spending cuts don’t seem realistic in the US, too many different states have competing interests for a majority of them to agree to drastically cut spending without alternatives, imo.
Immigration brings more people in to the economy to pay towards the national debt; more jobs need to be created to accommodate a bigger population. The debt is out of control once it’s at the point when there are physically not enough people in the country working and paying taxes to pay off the interest on that debt. I’ll add that it’d also potentially have to be a point where even if you had high corporate taxes it’s still an insurmountable sum of interest accruing.
Immigration in this context isn’t to drive down low skill labor but to have more jobs in the economy overall to pay towards the deficit.
I agree, losing manufacturing was a harsh blow to US culture and has hurt people in the US more in the long run.
I don't have a lot of hope. Like I said, cutting spending and raising taxes is political suicide. Every politician runs on cutting the deficit, and it has only gone up.
We're going to have to default on our debts and the world is going to have to cut us off, and then and only then are we're going to do something; and at that point, we're doubly screwed, because nobody is going to want to hold dollars, and there goes our exports and investments.
7 replies
This is a really shallow picture.
Honestly don´t know if either party can cut the deficit. Being the fiat currency leading to easy lending leading to debt to fund military adventures leading to collapse is the pattern of all empires throughout history.
That said, my experience is the Democrats do at least theoretically try to raise or maintain taxes and spend money on social programs and the Republicans, while running on the deficit, always cut taxes as much as possible while usually raising military spending. And, as we learned in Iran, our military spending is mostly a wealth redistribution scheme, but upwards (and, notably, backwards from the future).
And I don't even know if can fault individual politicians or parties. Cutting spending will definitely lose you votes. Stumping for liberal politicians I heard a lot from people involved in the defense industry.
The only way not to lose votes is to tax the rich, but only theoretically, because then you have to deal with a shitstorm of bad press from the rich-owned media and that will swing people against you; at least until the rich are well and truly despised by the populace, which we are getting to.
This probably ends in a Greek/Argentina-style collapse.
If the US was truly in a jam we’d start devaluing our currency more to pay towards the deficit. That’s not a good idea at all, but if we’re not raising taxes on corporations to pay towards the deficit then there really aren’t that many other options.
The US would have a hard time actually defaulting on its loans, imo. If the population growth stagnated enough that not being able to cover the interest became a concern, then the US could make it easier for people to work in the country to help grow the economy instead.
The easiest and most logical route is taxing corporations more, not even necessarily needing to cut current spending. It’s definitely a hurdle like you mention due to the media environment.
That would be Argentina.
The Greek response was austerity--cut government spending to the bone and raise taxes, a sure economy killer that just drives what little economy you have underground.
If we're at the point of economic stagnation that we can't cover our debt, we likely will also have high unemployment; importing workers wouldn't make political or economic sense.
I’m not as read on Argentina’s financial situation to comment specifics, but the US wouldn’t necessarily have to heavily devalue the currency to the point of hyperinflation. The US could still do hyperinflation, but it’d hurt trade even more as well as investor confidence; plus it’d probably piss off a lot of the people living in the US when suddenly their fixed income gets them less goods and services.
Cutting all spending is definitely tied with hyper inflation as one of the worst options, imo. Especially since you’re paying into a failed system and literally seeing no personal or societal benefit from your tax dollars.
Imo, it’s hard to say if not being able to cover debts would lead to high unemployment on its own. As it stands we’re not currently covering all our debts, but still promising to pay them back.
If it was announced now that there’s no projected way for us to cover the growing interest of US debt, when so many companies are already cutting jobs to bolster short term profits/projections, then there would be high unemployment.
Realistically, the government would have to find ways to make up the money it’s burning though if it doesn’t want the blowback from stopping spending. Growing industry through incentivizing more workers to come to the US and increasing domestic manufacturing is one of the ways the US could grow its economy. Doing something like that though would require shifting political framing to start seeing the benefits of bringing in more laborers to the US.
From the situation in Argentina: Citizens getting pissed off is not preventative, though after their last experience with hyperinflation, Argentina decided to try austerity this time around.
In the US context, cutting spending would also mean cutting significant amount of defense jobs, which would boost unemployment.
And if you have a starving, homeless and unemployed population, you don't need immigration to drive wages down for low skill labor; I don't understand why you keep bringing up immigration as a solution.
And losing manufacturing jobs is another classic part of the imperial hollowing out of a culture, along with increase debt and military adventurism...
I would like to believe that those in power would take other preventative measures before a situation like in Argentina happened here in the US. Maybe in five years, assuming the US gets a bit more logical, then that option would be completely out of the question.
Large spending cuts don’t seem realistic in the US, too many different states have competing interests for a majority of them to agree to drastically cut spending without alternatives, imo.
Immigration brings more people in to the economy to pay towards the national debt; more jobs need to be created to accommodate a bigger population. The debt is out of control once it’s at the point when there are physically not enough people in the country working and paying taxes to pay off the interest on that debt. I’ll add that it’d also potentially have to be a point where even if you had high corporate taxes it’s still an insurmountable sum of interest accruing.
Immigration in this context isn’t to drive down low skill labor but to have more jobs in the economy overall to pay towards the deficit.
I agree, losing manufacturing was a harsh blow to US culture and has hurt people in the US more in the long run.
I don't have a lot of hope. Like I said, cutting spending and raising taxes is political suicide. Every politician runs on cutting the deficit, and it has only gone up.
We're going to have to default on our debts and the world is going to have to cut us off, and then and only then are we're going to do something; and at that point, we're doubly screwed, because nobody is going to want to hold dollars, and there goes our exports and investments.