[QUOTE=justaboatdriver;121884]I sent off my paperwork via email adding endorsements Friday. My REC center sent it to the NMC that same day. I thought the NMC would be shut down this week as far as processing paperwork. They are not! I’m still getting progress emails saying my application is moving along.[/QUOTE]
The mail room types that process incoming applications are contractors and may be working. The next 3 steps, security check, medical, and professional, are done by locked-out Federal “GS” employees.
Anyone catch that news bit about WWII vets who came to D.C. to see the memorial in THEIR honor and were met by barricades because all state parks are officially closed? Well if you didn’t see it in the news this picture sums up their response, that is to say in the action they took, pretty well.
Exactly what I was trying to say. The simple gall of the guy. He helped create the problem, meanwhile the ranger is just forced to carryout the orders.
Also those rangers and Capitol police are working as “essential personnel” but they can’t get their pay checks till after its all over. They’re gonna get screwed with their bills: rent insurance, mortgage, and whatever.
That default on our debt thing is a bullshit line. The government takes in many times more revenue than it needs to continue paying the interest on our current debt. Not saying that bad things won’t happen, but defaulting on our debt isn’t one of them.
[QUOTE=“Jetryder223;121856”]I heard the shit really hits the fan if there is no budget by October 17th and we default on our debt.
No more low interest loans from other countries and you patriotic investors with US Savings Bonds are SOL.
Interesting times.[/QUOTE]
Whoever told you we will default on our debt is a POS effing liar. Firstly, you mean debt ceiling not budget. We have not even had a budget for the last 5 years or so. To the point, not raising the debt cieling has jack to do with us paying our debt obligation. Taxes still come in and payments still go out especially for servicing the debt. What it does do is not allow SOB’s in washington to give away more of our money to buy votes. In other words all mandatory spending will still be covered but no new discretionary spending can happen.
This is what will happen. The treasury will be forced to chose which bills to pay. Service the national debt or pay social security would be an example. As the economy spirals out of control, the treasury will eventually lose the ability to pay an ever growing number of bills due to decreasing tax revenues from a faltering economy. Eventually, we will default on our debt. This would in my opinion cause a worldwide economic plunge if it hadn’t occurred already. The housing market will crash. Your 401 k will probably disappear, but if you have all your money in gold, you may come out better that before as the flight to safety in gold will cause the price of gold to skyrocket.
Paradoxically it costs more to shut down then to stay open. This is due to less spending, causing less growth, less jobs, less taxes and so on, compounded over time.
It’s sort of like asking how much do you save by not investing for retirement.
This is what will happen. The treasury will be forced to chose which bills to pay. Service the national debt or pay social security would be an example. As the economy spirals out of control, the treasury will eventually lose the ability to pay an ever growing number of bills due to decreasing tax revenues from a faltering economy. Eventually, we will default on our debt. This would in my opinion cause a worldwide economic plunge if it hadn’t occurred already. The housing market will crash. Your 401 k will probably disappear, but if you have all your money in gold, you may come out better that before as the flight to safety in gold will cause the price of gold to skyrocket.[/QUOTE]
The treasury can only choose which bills not to pay from the discretionary side of the budget. Soc sec is on the mandatory side of the budget therefore by law it must be paid. COLA is discretionary however. As for the risk of our 401k going to hell yes it may happen but that is already happening because of the feds printing 85 Billion a month and giving it to wall street cronies.
[QUOTE=50thState;121948]That default on our debt thing is a bullshit line. The government takes in many times more revenue than it needs to continue paying the interest on our current debt. Not saying that bad things won’t happen, but defaulting on our debt isn’t one of them.[/QUOTE]
I’d like to meet the accountant that worked that out and so would Obama i’m sure…
Anyone that thinks you can borrow your way out of an income and expenditure problem is nuts…or a politician.
Why do you think those bankrupt corrupt Europeans invented the EURO…just to ensure that individually each country couldn’t go broke. They tried the too big to fail theory…
China has seen the light and now trades without using USD, that should have been a wake up call, not to mention using Tbills to buy gold…they would make good Boy Scouts.
But really Obama just wants the record for adding more debt than all the presidents before him added together - thats a scary stat!!
“To big to fail” is an assertion that a company is to big to let fail, because the ripple effects would be to big. It doesn’t assert that the company or country can’t fail.
The debt ceiling needs to be increased. Anyone with any understanding of economics knows that with deficit spending, the national debt is ever increasing. We have not had a surplus since the Clinton administration. It is true that the national debt has increased dramatically under Obama, but that can mostly be attributed to flooding the market with cash to stop the country from falling into a depression. The strategy has worked. The deficit has decreased a lot since, and the economy though growing slowly, is no longer in recession.
You cannot go from a large deficit to a surplus in no time, and you cannot not pay your bills. Whether the country defaults on its treasuries or can’t pay domestic bills, the country would still be insolvent. This would cause credit rating to fall, interest rates to climb, and borrowing to stall. Essentially, the growth of the economy would be stifled.
The government needs to continue to work towards a surplus, but not with the use of a guillotine. That would end up costing way to much in lost tax revenues.
There are 2 connected but different items here, your internal debt which you pay by actually printing money and paying government employees etc and external debt where you have to actually earn money to pay it off.
All that has happened is you issue T bills as a promise to pay in the future your oil bills etc
Japan and (then) China agreed to swap your paper for you buying their products to drag their economies up so now they sit on a couple of large piles of promises…
China certainly is preparing for the demise of the US$ very quietly
You have created an economy that only works because money falls from the sky
Have a look what happens to places like Argentina etc…In the old days you declared war and canceled the bill.
Living beyond your means is what it used to be called, not sure what its called now?
If the USA ( like the EU) is not the worlds biggest ponzi scheme what is it?
