Economic Argument for Austerity Based on Excel Error?

[fhdz]

Hey, Ide: theory only works on paper.

[MadImmortalMan]

And the bigger point, the one that's relevant for the US, is that when your debt/GDP gets to a certain size you start to run out of wiggle room.

That size is not fixed. It depends on the circumstances, the country, the culture even. In addition, historically, defaulting is a decision. Rarely do the market conditions back anyone so completely into a corner that it happens on its own.

[Razgovory]

The answer to our problem of spending way too much money is surely to spend a lot more.

What if our problem never was the government spending too much?

You have a good point.  If you start off like Berkut with the idea that all government spending is bad, then it seems that all the solutions to the world's problems are bad.

[Admiral Yi]

That size is not fixed. It depends on the circumstances, the country, the culture even. In addition, historically, defaulting is a decision. Rarely do the market conditions back anyone so completely into a corner that it happens on its own.

The issue I'm addressing is not the decision to default, which as you point out is a decision, but rather the premiums lenders start to charge.

[Neil]

The answer to our problem of spending way too much money is surely to spend a lot more.

What if our problem never was spending too much?

But it was.  We made a society where everyone was rich, but we weren't able to pay for it.

Yet we obviously did, since all those McMansions didn't come from nowhere.

What if our problem was instead private sector retrenchment due to the collapse of an asset bubble caused in part by deregulation, on top of thirty years of growing wealth inequality and the middle class not sharing in productivity gains, leading to lack of aggregate demand?  Maybe then spending a lot more to increase aggregate demand and jumpstart the economy would help.  Then when that's done, raise taxes on rich people so that our borderline-regressive tax code ameliorates our class divisions and a new middle class can bloom.

Or we can do nothing, permit at least one generation to become completely lost, if not all subsequent generations as businesses readjust to a new normal of perpetually slack demand for goods and services.  Sounds like a good plan, Berkut!

Taxing the rich won't help, because they don't have enough money.  Everyone's taxes must rise, even thought the rich must pay more than anyone else.  Still, you're part of the problem.  We live a world where a guy with no useful skills has a big TV and a collection of home movies.  Society has given the trappings of wealth to absolutely everyone, and yet government can no longer do its job.

I'm fine with a lost generation.  Every generation from now until the fall of the West is lost as far as I'm concerned.

[CountDeMoney]

Of course he would, but he's not going to land that job.  He's going to end up like that black guy in Falling Down, getting hauled off by the cops for protesting a bank that said that he's 'not economically viable'.  Except it'll be the NYSE, and Seedy will be talking about shareholder value.  He's been unemployed long enough that in this Brave New World, he's unemployable.

I don't have a pressure cooker and book bag, but I do have a crock pot and a gym bag.

THE SHRAPNEL WAS DETERMINED TO BE USED KITTY LITTER   
MANY CLUMPING INJURIES AT THE SCENE

[Neil]

Of course he would, but he's not going to land that job.  He's going to end up like that black guy in Falling Down, getting hauled off by the cops for protesting a bank that said that he's 'not economically viable'.  Except it'll be the NYSE, and Seedy will be talking about shareholder value.  He's been unemployed long enough that in this Brave New World, he's unemployable.

I don't have a pressure cooker and book bag, but I do have a crock pot and a gym bag.

THE SHRAPNEL WAS DETERMINED TO BE USED KITTY LITTER   
MANY CLUMPING INJURIES AT THE SCENE

Wouldn't that just be a stinky fire rather than an explosion?

[Ideologue]

Definitely the last kind I bought.  That stuff couldn't clump to save me from throwing out the whole box' worth, let alone shrapnelize.

[Ed Anger]

I use fresh step when I have to put Drut in the garage. I loathe the litter box.

[MadImmortalMan]

Biological weapon. Used cat litter can contain some serious nerve toxins deadly to humans. Always keep the litter box as far away from the kitchen as possible.

[PDH]

Aphrodite the Goddess Cat can overwhelm any clumping litter known to man.  She will drink 4 gallons of water just to break down the Clump Factor 10 litter, then proudly watch me when I clean the cat box and swear under my breath at her.

[Jacob]

Hey, Ide: theory only works on paper.

Unless its the theory you subscribe to?

[fhdz]

Hey, Ide: theory only works on paper.

Unless its the theory you subscribe to?

Which one is that, Jake?

[Ideologue]

Yeah, I don't even know what you mean by that, fahdiz, old top.

[Ideologue]

Hey, Ide: theory only works on paper.

Unless its the theory you subscribe to?

Which one is that, Jake?

Atheistic Catholicism.