There are 435 people in the House, 222 Republicans and 212 Democrats with one Vacancy. Do you really think we have 218 crazy people that will send this country into a tailspin? I really highly doubt it. Most people won’t drill holes in the boat they are in just to get back at people in the other seat.
Andy
There is no architecture or dialog in the house to resolve any of this.
The last time every agreed to the sequester. We continued with capital policies. Factories were not coming back from China longer term anyway.
This time if we do not spend on the infrastructure which is the goal here, then we have far fewer factories come back from China and far less of an industrial build out.
The requirement is to cut the IRA. The other requirements are to cut SS, Medicare, the EPA and OSHA.
The sequester did less to cut and more to hold down spending. It was much more neutral.
There is nothing neutral today. There is no discussion towards a solution.
The dollars and cents are counting down.
The problem is one small default destroys the value of all the debt.
So who does this get resolved with no default? The moderates? Right that is not the option. Might be later. Right now the moderates are toting the party lines. And McCarthy’s rule changes might have cut off the moderates from forcing any votes anyway.
McCarthy already said their would not be a default.
** “There will not be a default. But what is really irresponsible is what the Democrats are doing right now, saying we just raise the limit. … They won’t even negotiate. We have now till June,” he said.**
Andy
He is not qualified to make that statement about irresponsibility. We have really bad results from supply side economics.
It is important that he has backed down.
People watching fox are angry. I can watch fox as well and get angry but for entirely different reasons. McCarthy has to face them.
You must be somewhere under 18 years old, or have a very short memory. Because that’s exactly what happened in 2013, with 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats.
The debt ceiling was reached, the Treasury took its “extraordinary measures” and everyone kept kicking the can down the road. The result was that Fitch downgraded US debt (requiring the Treasury to increase its interest costs to attract investment). Global Credit Rating went from A to A- with the same result internationally.
The standoff in 2013 did not cause a market reaction, but the one in 2011, not such a “close call” caused the market to plunge almost 20%.
And yet **still ** not a debt default. You can’t claim someone was shot when the bullet still missed. This is still not anything to make you change your adult diapers.
Andy
Ah. So there’s no point in taking precautions until after the car is going over the cliff, even though the driver has veered perilously close twice before.
OK for you, then. I choose to arrange myself for a possible bad outcome. YMMV.
No I am saying do what you want but I am tired of all the Drama and people running around screaming at the top of their lungs that the world is ending, Yet, I go outside every day and see blue skies and the birds are singing. If you really want to think that everyone is stupid and they are going to drive the bus off the cliff. Well go ahead, but me I will take the other side of the coin.
Andy
There’s a big middle ground here.
The dinosaurs were all happily poking along until that asteroid hit. If they had taken the time to evolve better brains and invent a telescope, they might have seen what was coming. But they didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming them. The fault lies entirely with that asteroid.
Ok, with that bit of silliness off my chest, I feel compelled to point out that I’m not seeing a lot of drama and screaming at the top of lungs. Yes, there is a bit, but I take that all with a couple grains of salt. I take them as warning that something pretty bad is possible. Doesn’t mean it will certainly happen or even that it’s likely. Just possible.
Prudent folk should think about possibilities, especially when there could be some really bad consequences if the possibility comes to pass. When I go for a drive, I take a quick glance at my tires. I don’t expect to find anything wrong, mind you. Almost all of the time they are fine. But if there is a tire failure while I’m driving, that could lead to a serious wreck. So I give them a quick once over from time to time. And if they look soft or bulging or are getting bald, I do something about that. Maybe not immediately, and probably not drastic action. If they’re soft, I’ll check the pressure. If they’re getting bald, I’ll start shopping for new tires, looking for a good deal on replacements. But if I ignore the bald tires and wait until one fails, I’m going to be stuck on the side of the road at best, or finding myself spinning out of control at worst. And even in the best case, I’d need a new tire right now. I have go interrupt what I’m doing to deal with it, and will probably spend more just because I need it now.
That’s what’s going on here. Screaming about default isn’t helpful. Ignoring the possibility of defalut isn’t helpful. Thinking about it, considering how it might affect you, and then taking appropriate steps is the most reasonable thing to do.
Yes, for some folks, a default simply won’t affect them - at least not immediately and directly. Others might be significantly impacted. They will take different actions - or non-actions - that fit their situation.
From a different point of view, what you choose to do may not be right for someone else. Someone who has a lot of money invested in US Treasuries, will be very concerned for good reason. Someone else who has few investments may be pretty unconcerned about it all. For either to think the other should take their point of view is also wrong.
–Peter
Yeah we have Canadian geese around here. It is a balmy 50 F today. Nice change from the millennium of 10 F.
Goofy thanks for the refresher course on 2013. I have not had time to dig up the facts of the sequester. There will be zero no nada sequester this time.
That is true Peter, one point of view is not more valid than any other point of view, but “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results . We have seen this over and over and the chances of having a different result is absolutely nil. There are to many sane people in congress for any default to happen. When this passes we will be onto more investigations and time wasting, that is how it just works. So Here is a little Poll.
0 voters
Andy
Andy,
There will be a government default. Wrong question.
The question is how will it be resolved?
There is no evidence yet that it will be resolved.
2013 talks were underway for a sequester method.
My poll my questions. Cooks choice. If you want to cook up a poll it is very easy. Hit the settings/ Gear button above and then hit the gear button again.
Andy
There is no poll for degrees of outcomes.
Still wrong question.
I don’t think there will be a default. I think there will be a confrontation and game of “chicken” leading up to it which could destabilize the markets, lead to a further downgrade of US credit, affect the bond market, and sink portfolios.
I know some people want to make this a simple binary option and thereby somehow win “argument points”, but it’s not that easy. Adults know that these choices require nuance, and that outcomes are uncertain.
One thing I should have realized Goofy is that you guys use this forum as a big friends group to sit around with your coffee and talk about current events. There is nothing wrong about that. But there also are people around here that like to poke the bear to win “argument points”. That seems a little passive aggressive. But when it comes down to it, it really is black and white. Everyone in the Congress is calculating how close they can get to the edge before they fall off. Just as before I think they will pull back.
I find it interesting that in the poll it’s about exactly about the percentage of people on each side that are willing to go over the edge. 33 percent on the Left and 33 percent on the right. Let’s just hope that we don’t get those two sides to collude to blow up the world. If it stays like this maybe we can work towards the middle.
I was watching Bill Maher this weekend and he had Tim Ryan on. He started me thinking. He said he doesn’t allow himself to be pulled into the stupid arguments, your pet peeve here, and how it takes so much energy and pulls people away from real problems. I would say this argument is one of those. Every American should be mad we can’t just solve problems, especially easy ones like this.
Finally, I should have left well enough alone. You guys are having fun and most of the time you all are probably laughing about all this. Which is really good, because I know I have had some good laughs over some of the arguments. So have fun.
Andy
I knew a man - actually more of a role model or mentor to me - like that. He saw the world in black and white, right or wrong. It served him pretty well most of the time. But he wouldn’t bend to see other points of view on right and wrong. That cost him two marriages and a relationship with a couple of his children.
At his funeral, I spoke up and noted this about him (the right and wrong part, not the two marriages) and mentioned that we need people who see the world this way. They help remind us that many times things are pretty close to black and white. While we can talk about nuances and rare possibilities, we ultimately have to make a decision - black or white?
Everyone in the Congress is calculating how close they can get to the edge before they fall off. Just as before I think they will pull back.
There is real risk in any game of chicken. Sometimes you misjudge where that edge is and fall off. Will this be the time that some member of Congress misjudges? I don’t know. But I can’t definitively say that they won’t. So I choose to think about what happens if we do fall off that cliff.
–Peter
I once had a friend that extrapolated every sentence out to the absurd. Everything you said he would say that is how you think and couldn’t understand that because one instance might really be black and white, the other instances might have a more nuanced approach.
Andy