Then consider that, compared to all humans through history, today's generation worldwide is the best-off out of all of them. Anyone born today is in the top 1% historically, so the Occupy people are in the 1% of the 1%. The fact is, most people in the 1st world are spoiled, whining bitches. In this respect, most humans are just ungrateful scum - you give them everything and yet they still complain about it. 1000s of years of progress, and then one slight GDP contraction and they act as if it's the second coming of the Black Death. Most people need a bloody good kicking. Next time you see a whining bitch, punch him in the face and shut the pathetic bastard up.
Unfortunately, the social strata most deserving of austerity (public employee unions), will get it the least. And those who deserve it the least - the hardworking middle class - will foot the bill. I honestly don't care what happens. Cutten and Peil are right. America has gone to shit. Most people are clueless idiots who expect cradle-to-grave socialism, plus a high paying job, with feeble skills.
Very interesting post. It helps the debate a great deal to be able to illustrate that not only is not all austerity equal (UK not equal to Estonia) but that there are ways to implement austerity that produces results that at least begin in the near term. The common wisdom seems to be we need to cut later because the good results, being so far off, will not help us in the near term when we need them most. At the same time these are highly educated societies with cultures that produce what the 21st Century has demand for. Anyone ever met an Estonia over the age of six that could not do trigonometry? No one in the political class of our country wants to discuss what the bottom 15 or 20% of this nation -- in terms of education, skills, cultural liabilities and, in the broad sense, addictions -- looks like. No one wants to talk about the class that feeds and grows astonishingly wealthy off the addictions of our country -- big pharma, food (most of it is close to poison), banking etc. no longer resemble what built this empire. In the sixties The Graduate was famously told to get into plastics. Today the the easy monies is in dealing drugs, crack disguised as food and credit. Imagine taking down $$$ from the Fed at virtually no interest and putting it out on the street at 29% and then, since we need more consumer spending, being encouraged to take down another billion or two all the while turning down reasonably qualified home buyers because putting mortgage money out around 4% is of no interest (pun intended)to you. Nice work if you can get it. In case you can't tell I am not optimistic! There are two very scary movies running simultaneously in this country and no one is addressing what is on either screen. Anyone care to guess what California will look like in five years?
I don't think people understand the available options: 1) Austerity, or 2) Imploded debt market, or 3) Imploded currency It's really that simple. Countries cannot borrow forever without blowing up. The gawkers seem to think austerity is financial penance. That if we set down that big bag of rocks, the economy will chug along just fine and we can all retire at 50.
Why not 45? Achilles some of them actually believe all you would have to do is pass the legislation and 45 it is!!
well first of all, there's no such thing as idle cash. It's always workimg for somebody somewhere. But I have often thought about a net worth tax. Every year on your birthday you sit down with the IRS and they figure out what your net worth is and assess you a certain percentage of tax owed based on your net worth and you have one year to liquidate and pay it. One of those ideas that sounds good late at night but not so good the next morning. You'd need a high exemption to protect little old ladies with nest eggs.
Think about the garbage you are talking about...the only thing that makes real growth happen is investment in the maintenance or creation of assets. In fact the only thing that pays for government spending and consumption is the investment in assets. The problem in the West today is that our investment in assets has been declining for more than thirty years (we thought tech stocks then houses were assets when they were not). Because we don't invest in the maintenance and creation of assets and we diverted capital to mal investment in commercial real estate, then no income tech and internet stocks, then into overpriced housing and its derivative paper, we now find that we don't have enough income to pay the debts we have incurred in order to consume and grow government. The only solution is to retrain spending while diverting remaining capital to investment...that is how you grow...So, how do you make risk taking investment happen? The answer is that you let people make money and then they get to keep it if they are successful. The idea of a wealth tax is the opposite of that. If they start a wealth tax the reaction is to hide your wealth and not to invest or they will find out about it. Nothing could be more stupid. Think about all the taxes and proposed tax cuts and ask yourself if such fiscal policy would encourage people to invest.
well like I said, it always sounds like a bad idea the morning after I don't have much faith in the government I'm concerned they are draining too much of the peoples money to fund their increasing power In the end, their only real power is to tax (or even worse forgive taxes for their friends), so that's why I think maybe too much about taxes