The Austerity-Reality Gap

lions,

and tigers,

and bears.

OH my!

The Left is on an absolute tear about what they call 'austerity.' Austerity, as they define it, is any slight reduction, no matter how great or small, in the massive increases of public debt fueled public spending anywhere in the world. With some irony, because widepread 'austerity' is exactly what they are trying to project upon fuure generations...

You see, according to these existentially terrified children, it is 'austerity' causing the current economic crisis. Why, to beleive the Center for American Progress Down the Shitterhole of History, our economies would be BOOMING today, if only we had not practiced something called 'austerity.'

As in, totally ignoring the evidence in Europe, where Germany's Agenda 2010 kept it from following Greece down the Shitterhole of History, and where even little Estonia's experience in 'austerity' has given it one of the leading resurging economies in the Eurpoean mess. The Left is absolutely desperate--on a spraypainting tear-- to keep this reality far from the America public.

Instead, articles like the above are shoveled out by the wagonload, claiming that Greece's problems are due not to their own runaway welfare/public pension state insanity but neighboring Germany's refusal not to make it work for them for fifteen minutes longer and follow them down the shitterhole of history, where America's left wants to take us(and where America's right is hardly dragging its feet in modern times except for very recently, if they can hang on to their spine for a while longer.

They are asking us, 'don't believe the lying history books.'

Because it was JFK's America and those economies that roared that suffered from the 'austerity' of a federal government that met its SS obligations, built the Interstates, defended America at the peak of the Cold War, launched the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo Moon Programs(the remnants of which still, to this day, are driving what little is left of our 'Facebook' economies...)all for $100B in federal overhead, over half of which was for defense.

That $100B inflation and population adjusts to maybe, if we are generous and assume zero % increase in public sector productivity over 50 years, to maybe $1500B today.

If we are to believe the 'austerity' freaks, JFK's economies 'suffered' from $2.3T/yr in 'austerity' over our present economies.

And yet, it was JFK's economies that roared, and ours that have languished for over five years after the $2T in -additional- QE1 and QE2...which the austerians(not to be confused with Austrians)claim was 'too little.'

Too little to do what? Flush America completely down the shitterhole of history?

Post 1

Sunday, October 6, 2013 - 10:35am

Curiously, at the "lions" link, the article was written by a man but to speak with their experts on this topic (info at bottom), you have to make your way through a wall of women (you cannot speak to the author of the article). Now, women are better talkers than men are (because of evolutionary psychology), so one possible impression is that these super-linguistic women are forming a Praetorian Guard of defense against something that is inherently fragile (i.e., the "logic" of the author).

:-)

Also, from the "bears" link, there's this gem:

The call for reparations has elicited an emotional outpouring in Greece, where six years of brutal recession and harsh austerity measures have left many Greeks hostile toward Germany. Rarely does a week go by without another report in the news about, as one newspaper put it in a headline, �What Germany Owes Us.�

This reminds me of human history ...

-------------------------------
Soldier: Emperor!

Emperor: What? What is it?

Soldier: There are barbarians ... [catching breath] ... barbarians at the gate!
-------------------------------

Ed

Post 2

Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - 6:36pm

Didnt want 2 start a new thread just for this but...some cupcake on CNN just now, when asked how bad the consequences of this default might get, said with a straight face , " the SS Trust Fund could end up paying in IOUs."

Ya think?

I wonder what she thinks is in the SS Trust Fund?

reality gap got plenty of room...

Post 3

Wednesday, October 16, 2013 - 6:36pm

Fred,

I know what you are saying. Just today, I was listening to NPR and they ran a "news" (read: promotional) story about how we should do away with the notion of any kind of a debt ceiling in this country. They interviewed an "economist" who argued that debt ceilings are "weird" and that they "contradict" existing law. Here is a paraphrase of his argument:

We have in place a law regarding the creation of a federal budget, which the president signs. Having a debt ceiling, also (i.e., along with a signed federal budget), is like having a second law that contradicts the first. It's all really very weird. We really should do away with debt ceilings.

Can you see what it is that is inherently dishonest in that argument (especially when put forth by an "expert")? Apparently, NPR didn't catch it, or willfully ran the story anyway (possibly with pressure from "above"). It's like Candyland, where lollipops grow out of the ground, and you can talk about things that are supposed to exist but do not currently exist -- as if they currently exist, in order to argue for something that exists which you think should not. It's a virtual playground of facts and logic, to be manipulated to your heart's desire.

Ed

Post 4

Wednesday, October 16, 2013 - 7:08pm

But ... but ... Ed ... it ... "works"!

Post 5

Thursday, October 17, 2013 - 5:58pm

Luke,

Here's the skeleton of the argument with different flesh on it.

Feds: What are you doing?

An Arizona cop: I just saw that guy run across the border from Mexico, so I stopped him. It is my accepted duty to protect and ser ...

Feds: But you can't do that. You see, there is already a law in place that protects the border, and your actions -- while roughly having the same effect as an enforced law regarding immigration -- contradict that law.

An Arizona cop: But you guys aren't enforcing the immigration law, so how can that be? How can a law that is not being enforced -- not being embodied into the actions of actual humans -- be contradicted?

Feds: What are you talking about?

An Arizona cop: Well, take the federal budget. It is something that, under normal circumstances, indirectly prescribes -- by outlining prospective cash flow -- a debt ceiling or debt limit, right?

Feds: Yeah, sure.

An Arizona cop: But what about when congress does not create a budget? What then?

Feds: Well, then you need a specific debt ceiling.

An Arizona cop: Why?

Feds: Because you need a debt limit, and if you cannot get one from a budget (because congress refuses to make one), then you need it as a stand-alone law in itself.

An Arizona cop: Why do you need some kind of a limit on debt?

Feds: Because of reality.

An Arizona cop: Please explain.

Feds: If you don't limit debt, then you get Germany in 1923.

An Arizona cop: Please elaborate.

Feds: Well, you inflate and borrow a little (you unilaterally expand credit) in order to boost economic activity or pay off cronies or whatever, but this triggered increase in activity can only be maintained by a continuous, geometric increase in inflation and borrowing -- until you reach the point where every able-bodied citizen would have to work around the clock in order to either physically print new money (to cover geometric increases in interest rates) or otherwise alter and adjust everything (e.g., the numerical denomination on money, the displayed prices in stores, etc.) upwards. An exponential increase in anything, eventually, will overwhelm any society that operates inside of physical reality.

An Arizona cop: Okay, I get it. Debt is not something than can ever be unlimited because, eventually, every human action taken will have to be in service to adjusting tools such as money, or signs in the window of stores that advertise prices, or whatever. I get it. It is not something that can ever be unlimited, because an unlimited amount -- just like an unlimited amount of heat, or an unlimited amount of radiation, or an unlimited amount of oxygen, etc. -- would, eventually, kill us all. Now let me bring this around to my point. Can we have unlimited immigration?

Feds: Alright, alright (you got me). I see where this is going. Don't mind me. Carry on with you doing your job then. Sorry to interfere!

Post 6

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 7:15am

Here is what a justification for almost a trillion dollars in spending looks like.

898 billion dollars, in one year.

$12B with a B is being spent to 'fight fraud...' The program -is- the fraud.

When MEDICARE started in 1966, was $3B/yr...

We are one sick generation.

Population has grown by maybe 1.8.... MEDICARE spending has grown by a factor of 300.

Inflation? Accounts for 7.5 of that 300...

Population and inflation adjusts that original $3B to maybe $45B today. We are spending nearly 900B.

Do you remember JFK's America? The elderly stacked up like cordwood in the gutters outside of hospitals?

Me neither.

...

They spent how much building this cluster fuck of a website? And once again, a clueless government politico micromanaged the effort by trying to spin the bad news regarding pricing...

Can you imagine if -any- of this had been a GOP cluster fuck? The press is currently carrying so much water their backs are breaking, and not even they can keep it together. This has been an unmitigated cluster fuck.

These fucking idiots should be hauled off to a university somewhere to permanantly man 'Museums of Stupidity.' Future generations could visit to point at them and just laugh, "Can you imagine a nation run by these tools?"

regards,
Fred

PS; There is a chart on P26 or thereabouts called Program Costs. It is labeled 'costs in thousands.' It must be mislabeled.

This gibberish makes no sense at all. It is a snowjob in plain site.

Post 7

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 9:22am

Google News feed on ACA clusterfuck: crickets...

All the news that's fit to manage.

Post 8

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 9:47am

According to former Seal, now freedom activist, Benjamin Smith: high ranking military leader litmus test for last several years includes quietly being asked "Are you willing to fire on US Civilians?" as in, during a nationwide confiscation effort, or other civil uprising?

Results are used to cull the shepherds leading the herd.

Their oath is to defend the consititution against enemies foreign and domestic...not defend the current infestation in the White House from angry victims.

I've no reason to doubt this guy. It sounds exactly like the radicals in this Administration.

If this is true-- for all those patriots who answered 'no', I'm sure a better, self-asked question has been "Am I willing to participate in history's biggest fragging?"

Egypt's military recently saved its nation from an out of conrol dictatorship, and we largely cheered, except for a noticable nervous Obama...

In case they are wondering, in their push it to the limit ratcake left wing politics, they are getting very close to that line.

We are at the point where 49% of the nation would cheer that eventuality and even augment it whenever, however, and wherever possible.

regards,
Fred

Post 9

Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - 9:53am