waitforufo

Even the 1%. It's their money. It belongs to them. If you simply say "good for them" and forget about it you will become a happier person. Did the 1% really earn their money? If not them then someone in their family. They got ownership of it somehow. I hope to leave money behind for my kids. Why should the Kennedy's be any different? What did Bill Gates ever do to me but make my life better? Same with Steve Jobs. The rich are not soaking up all the assets. Other people's problems are just that. Other peoples. I would encourage those in the 1% to be charitable, but there is a big difference between charity and entitlement. Do you know the difference? There bills. Those bills belong to them, not me. I wish them the best in paying them off. I got to where I am by waiting for opportunity and taking risks. I appreciate that many think success is really just another word for luck, but those people are wrong. You put yourself in the way of luck. You can't win if you don't play. I'm curious where you are getting this 99% number? I don't know anyone personally who is in the 1% but I know lots of people in the 20% plus club. They are all doing great. Almost all of them had zip in their 20's, but with work made it into the 20% plus club later in life. Well some of those 20% plus people don't appreciate how to live within their means and borrow too much money, but again that is their problem. It's not the fault of preditory lenders. Caveat emptor, ever hear of that one? Where I work I make more money in a week than it takes others to make in a month. I didn't get here overnight. It took lots of hard work. That didn't happen by accident. My father was a drunk. I grew up with very little. Same is true for most in the neighborhood I grew up in. I know pleanty of people from that old neighborhood that are in the 20% plus club. They are all nice people and I don't belive they screwed anyone to get there. Why do you think you or anyone else is entitled to their money? Personal property is the cornerstone of the middle class. Why are you trying to kill the middle class? Why arn't you happy for them? Sorry if there is bad spelling. I'm in a hurry.

Relax. Nobody wants a totalitarian government. I have been listening to such BS since high school in the 70's. Never going to happen in the US. Remember, we all have guns. With regard to wealth redistribution please leave me out. I earned my money and it belongs to me. I feel that way about everyone else's money as well. I have never looked at another person and thought there money or wealth belonged to me or anyone else but that person. When I see a wealthy or successful person I think "good for them." If you start doing that yourself it will improve your happiness.

I agree that the individual mandate will have to be delayed if they can't get the problems worked out on ACA enrollment. I think however it's too early to take that step. If problems persist through Novermber however the mandate will have to be delayed.

TAR2, Overtone has stated that when democrats do bad things or make bad choices that they are actually republicans. This makes his word view complete.

You say the economy grows by itself, but then you mention the Obama stimulus. If the government wasn't trying to stimulate economic growth what was it trying to stimulate?

Fundamentally there is no problem with debt. Weather it is personal debt or governmental debt. In fact governmental debt has positive functions in our economy. If for nothing else it is a safe harbor for money when looking for other more profitable ventures or when your risk tolerance is very low. Debt becomes a problem when your debt-to-income ratio gets out of whack. Our problem in the US (and many other countries) is that our income isn’t growing fast enough to keep up with our borrowing. The best way to get out of that problem is to grow your income if you are an individual or grow the economy if you are a government. Otherwise you have to cut spending or go bankrupt. Looks like we are trying to choose option 3. The problem with that choice is the constitution requires that we pay our debt. I’m always amazed that growing the economy is no longer considered an option. It has worked well in the past. There is one financial problem with growing the economy when you are in the current US situation. We finance most of our debt with short term notes to receive a more favorable interest rate. Grow the economy and interest rates will go up. So will our interest payments because we have to constantly turn our short term notes. Perhaps the improved revenue of a growing economy will more than compensate for rising interest rates, but we better make sure our growth rate is very robust to get ahead of the rising interest rate curve. Or we can just have lots of inflation.

This reminds me of the sign you see in bars that says "free beer tomorrow." Tomorrow never comes iNow. The longer quantitative easing goes on the deeper the pit gets. If that were not true why the need to pretend QE will stop tomorrow? I know you all think I'm a selfish jerk for posting my daily government shutdown updates. That acknowledgement by itself should earn me many up votes for this post. Based on that I decided you give you a break yesterday. These updates however have a point. I'm sure I'm not the only one out their feeling no pain. My guess is that the vast majority of Americans are in the same no pain boat. My guess is that's also true for most of us on Science Forums. The government knows this so they are doing their best to make it hurt. Hence the NPS sideshow which has backfired so now it is mostly over. The longer the 17% shutdown goes on the more that vast majority is going to wonder why we were spending that extra 17% in the first place. Sure they my not be bold enough to say it, but their id is keeping score. So once again my daily update. No pain for me or for anyone I know.

And if the people that were running the Moore farm hadn't said screw you NPS it would still be closed. I'm glad to see it hasn't stopped there. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/9/first-amendment-used-to-break-park-service-barrier/ This gets me back to the mice. The mice really had to be put down? mice? No one volunteered to feed them. How hard could that be? No one said screw you I'm not going to do it? No one turned the tables and barricaded themselves in the lab. A little media attention would have put a stop to killing the mice. That seems to be the key to untangling the governments "let's make this as bad as it can be attitude."

Oh yeah, One more thing. I would make sure every single person in the national park service got a pink slip. The garbage in the following link as to stop. The national parks belong to the people not the government. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/park-police_762277.html

I linked Heritage because it was the first link I found with the information I wanted, nothing more. First, I counted the interest twice so we only need to cut spending by 20% not 26%, so a 60% cut in descretionary spending. Second, the defacto balanced budet will only be in place for a short time. Democrats will cave soon after a the ceiling is hit. Third, to some degree States will fill the gap. So no, I don't think it will be a catastrophe. In fact I don't think it will impact my life or the lives of my loved ones at all. Thank you for posting the other image. Now we can all pick and choose which parts of descretionary spending to cut. So I have to get it down to 10%. Lets see..... I say keep international affairs, veterans benefits and food and ag. There, the rest of it can go.

Yes, there will be enough money. A quick google search found the following. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/08/federal-spending-by-the-numbers-2013 So the federal government has to cut back spending by 20% (2.8/3.5=0.8) to stop borrowing money. http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ So if we don't borrow any more money and pay the interest on the debt we need to cut descretionary spending by 26%. Well descretionary spending currently stands at 30%. No cuts in mandatory spending are required. So pain, but no catastrophe. In 8 days we will start to find out just how descretionary our descretionary spending really is. Currently the government is operating at 83%. We only need to cut 9% more. That gets me to my daily update. From the start of the partial government shutdown to today I have felt not impact nor has anyone I know. Maybe that will change with the defacto balanced budget requirement but I doubt it. I will keep you posted.

So the defacto balanced budget law goes into effect in 8 days. So again, what should we cut and what should be eliminated? Should it be the military? Should it be head start? Should it be the NSA? Should it be the EPA. Maybe we should just assign all government programs a random number and have a random number generator choose which programs to kill until we have a balance budget. We have to service our debt so something is going to have to give. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-the-shutdown-4/?hpid=z2#c1e3ada3-dc00-41d8-92cb-327c5c814d82

So what you are saying is that the problem with the Republican party is Democrats?

There is revenue, or money if you prefer, just not enough. So the interest on the debt has to be paid, as well as government pensions, and social security. Everything else is on the table for cuts or elimination. The 14th amendment is in the constitution. Can you provide a source where the constitution is found unconstitutional? You may have a chance with finding the debt ceiling unconstitutional. Maybe the Supreme Court would stay the debt ceiling while they decide but I dout it. Due to it's importance they would likely decide quickly. My guess is they would say congress has the power to pass such a law, but who knows. Again, we have money just not enough. So we can pay some of our bills. We must follow the 14th ammendment first and then we can spend what is leftover and no more. In part my comment on Democrats and the civil war is a joke. I only say in part because people keep compairing Republicans to pre Civil War confederates. Those pre Civil War Confederates were Democrats. I don't think we should ever forget the Democrats caused the death of 2% of the US population. Republicans may not know, but they seem to be willing to find out.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Both the debt ceiling law and the 14th amendment can be enforced. We simply can't increase the debt or stop making interest payments. The only way to do that is to cut other government expenditures after paying interest on the debt. The government will continue to collect revenue, just not enough for paying interest on the debt and all other current expenditures. That means other current expenditures must be cut. As I mentioned, Social Security is a pension which is also protected by the 14th amendment. Also true for other government pensions. Also true for paying those that rounded up Democrats for causing the Civil War. So what is left? I ask again, what programs and government departments do we cut, and what ones do we eliminate? Now do you understand why Republicans aren’t to worried about hitting the debt ceiling? http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-reject-debt-limit-doomsday-predictions/story?id=20500649

Time for my daily update. No impact on me personally. One of the guys in my lab said the NIST time clock is shutdown. I told him to use is cell phone. Crisis averted. iNow makes it sound like the stock market is tanking, but the stock market has been between 14500 and 15500 for some time. No worries from me. Also iNow, air quality is much better now than when I was in my 20s so there is no need to hold my breath. Water quality is also much better. It's only foolishness over CO2 that is killing the economy. Arete, sorry the mice were put down. As a joke I almost said shame on you for experimenting on mice. There are always more mice, but the lost research was a shame. Tell your friends to get jobs in the private sector. Since we are less than 10 days away from the debt ceiling being reached at least by the current FED prediction, perhaps we should be talking about that. Some people keep saying the US will go into default if the debt ceiling is reach, or at least technical default. Default however is prohibited by the 14th amendment which includes the following. So from the 14th amendment Social Security seems safe as a payment of pensions. Same with other government pensions. I doubt we have any payments left for rounding up Democrats responsible for the civil war. Other than that however debt payments come first. So what are we going to cut? Should entire departments be eliminated to service debt payments?

Tar, Thank you for your rebuttal to iNow's post. I agree with you completely. One item you could have perhaps added is that markets are supposed to rise with dollar devaluation. The value of a company does not change simply because the government is printing money. That's one of the reasons people buy stocks. So wealthy people own stocks, the poor don't, and the middle class has most of their money in savings or bonds. By owning stocks wealthy people are protected but the poor and middle class are not. Printing money devalues savings and bonds. Printing money simply increases the wealth gap that liberals are always crying about.

Sorry, I was too busy enjoying my day yesterday and I forgot to give my government shutdown update, so I will have to combine it with today. Shutdown day 6 and 7: The shutdown still has had no impact on my life or the lives of anyone I know. I guess that is not too big of a surprise. 83% of the government is still functioning so their can't be too many people that have been impacted. I'm glad to see the government can still find money to do things like the one shown in the following link. http://siouxfallsbusinessjournal.argusleader.com/article/20131004/UPDATES/310040047/S-D-officials-object-feds-barring-visitors-from-highway-viewing-areas-near-Mount-Rushmore I'm wondering what it cost to put out all of those cones so that people couldn't stop and take a few snaps. I appreciate how egregious that would be considering that it would cost the government nothing. Meanwhile back in Washington D.C. the national mall will be open for an immigration reform rally. I'd love to hear the logic for stopping people from taking snaps yet opening the mall for a rally. http://washingtonexaminer.com/park-service-oks-immigration-reform-rally-on-closed-national-mall/article/2536908 I'm glad to see that all those military contractors went back to work. Non-essential one day essential the next. Didn't even need a phone call to Harry Reid. You know, people that save their money are generally concerned about more than right now. That is why they save. They are worried about the future. So the government is creating conditions where savers are loosing money because of a devalued dollar and are earning no interest, but they should consider quantitative easing to be a good policy? Tell that to retired people living on their savings. Yeah, Yeah, I know, Those people have money so screw them. Don't expect quantitative easing to stop any time soon or ever. If interest rates go up to modest levels common during a robust economy, say 5 to 6 percent, almost all income taxes collected will be needed just to pay the interest on the national debt. Quantitative easing is just printing money to make national debt interest payments. We are past the point of no return. We can't grow the economy because it will kill the environment, we can't pay our debt so we print money. But for right now that’s better (easier) than fixing our problems so screw tomorrow.

Of course those in the military blame the commander in chief. All he has to do is call Harry Reid, hold a press conference, and this would all be over. In fact he could do this simply for the military and for civilian contractors working with the military. Republicans would be happy to fund this part of the government. The commander and chief has responsibilities to the military and to the protection of the country. Responsibilities he is ignoring. jduff, I feel your pain. Excellent input. Keep it coming. Day 5 shutdown report: Still feeling no pain. Still don't know anyone feeling pain. I'll keep you posted.

The difference between dependency incentives and tax incentives is that dependency incentives gives people money they didn't make and tax incentives let you keep the money you did make. Liberals seem to have a week understanding of personal properly. They see no difference between money made and money given. It's all part of "the money" that in their eyes needs to be distributed by the government. Perhaps not a wonderful attitude, but I bring it up to make a point. Unlike those on this forum, very few people pay attention to politics or if they do it’s just the circus part of bread and circuses. So for that vast majority the government shutdown is just a meaningless distraction from things that actually interest them. When it does impact them then they will care. The government is desperate to make it impact them. That is why they shut down the WWII memorial. An open air structure in a park. They could have just put up signs that said, "The government is shut down so please pick up your trash." Instead they spend money putting up barry-cades. And that is supposed to make me care about the shutdown? I know it has only been a few hours, but still no impact on me.

Wow. The above just bleeds. Liberals just can't buy the idea that government promotes dependency. It's simple too. The government gives you a form. If you check all the right boxes you get money. They even tell you what the right boxes are. Given that goal by the government one can then work at making sure they can check all the right boxes. It's that simple. It's no different than tax incentives. The government creates tax incentives to encourage people to do the things that are incentivized. Back to the government shut down. Still not feeling the effects. Still don't know anyone who is feeling the effects. I'll keep you posted.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I agree with your comment about a panic stricken person trying to get away. I think the deranged part is simply speculation. I have known people who have hit and run during an automobile accident. The running was just part of the panic. When your fight or flight instinct chooses flight, I'm not sure you are still in rational control. Same goes for fight, which in part is why we have self defense laws.

I could be a jerk and ask for sources that prove your "well worth the money" comment but I won't. I'll agree that parts are worth the money. On the other hand most people will see no impact and wonder what all the fuss is about. They may wonder what all those 800,000 people were doing if they can't notice when the doing it stopped. They may also ask why is the government doing anything that isn't essential and why they should be expected to ever pay for non-essential budget items. Those were common questions during the last shutdown.

For the vast majority of Americans this shutdown will have no impact on their lives. I remember the last shutdown well. While there was lots of talk at lunch and around the water cooler but no one I worked with was impacted. IMO the greatest political impact will be that this vast majority will discover that they can live with a smaller federal government. That is why it will end soon. The government doesn't want people to discover that smaller is better.