Randomness

[interest1]

Stolen from a friend, who stole it from another friend, who . . .

I believe this is what the grown-up version of Patroklus was trying to say earlier. Props.

avout's first sentence says it all.

[theetruscan]

... aren't the answer at all, considering that we have 1.5ish trillion to make up before we break even, let alone begin paying down debt. The solution is in cutting spending to the programs that no one brings up on the floor because they're all benefiting from them.

more meaningful tax restructuring (which the Bush cuts were not, really) would be the best way to do this, but simply increasing taxes and expecting the GDP to rise is definitely not a great idea.

Nah, getting the economy growing is the answer. There's lots of fat to cut, but not on the scale needed. Unless the economy is brought back to a state of growth, all this "cut that, tax that" conversation is useless. In less snarky terms, with wages stuck low, and unemployment stuck high, there's no cutting that will work*. There's a strong pushback from this, because the people who own everything are extremely well served by low taxes, high unemployment, and low wages. But, I'm blathering on the internet, I see no reason to be subject to the tyranny of the feasible.

1) Spend shittons of money, get economy going. Basically, use the fact that the government currently borrows at an effectively negative rate to fix the country. Infrastructure, energy, etcetera.

2a) Cut bullshit extra jet engines and defense bloat and whatever else you want.

2b) Tax people for the quality services they now receive.

3) Champagne.

* See the shitshow that is the UK for why contraction in recession is for suckers.

[Patroklus]

I believe this is what the grown-up version of Patroklus was trying to say earlier. Props.

I'm a lot more extreme than that! Here's my plan:

First, we eliminate all current taxes and replace them with a flat % tax on all electronic transactions. The poorest will be virtually unaffected, as their spending is small enough to be handled entirely in cash, which is not taxed. People who plug supercomputers into stock feeds and have make hundreds of trades every minute will be fucked raw, and even though I said that I don't like using taxation as a means of economic regulation, I'm all for this because they're making money by inventing imaginary wealth instead of contributing real wealth in the way that a luxury car or clothes or yacht manufacturer might. Old style stock trading, where you predict big shifts in the market, will be unaffected, as will investment, as will generating wealth by making things. And of course, credit transactions are electronic, so using cash you actually have is now more appealing, and hiring new employees is easier to stomach because it doesn't incur new sorts of payroll taxes. Thus, the economy is normalized.

Now, for the debt, this is very simple: we just confess that the USD is imaginary money and replace it with commodity-backed Freedom Dollars. We aren't welching on any debt, we're just admitting that it's actually not very meaningful if they're going to charge for it in banker dollars. In fact, we can even pay it back! Let's say the new Freedom Dollar is worth one ounce of gold. The USD is already worthless in comparison with gold, and will be even more so once we abandon it, so we happily pay them back the full real value of the debt they hold: absolutely nothing. The best part is that the entire world can switch over to their own version of commodity backed Freedom Dollars; now all governments have settled their banker dollar debts with one another and the only people who get short thrifted are the fuckheads at the IMF!

Lastly, we recede the federal government back to the power enumerated to it in the Constitution. I know, this means we're getting rid of the social welfare programs that I said I support, but more importantly it gets rid of bullshit like the TSA and the bloated, sprawling programs enacted by every president since and including Reagan. We can bring federal welfare back, simply by holding constitutional conventions, and I like this because it's easier to sell people on amending welfare into the constitution than amending Big Brother into the constitution; who the fuck would have actually voted for the TSA to be implemented? Plus, welfare can always simply be handed down to individual state and civic governments.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I will save America.

[sam_tem]

currently offshore and listening to all these old dudes moan about taxes going up. just wished they'd have a real conversation about the economy rather than bitch about welfare and immigrants. apparently if you're a southern republican our entire national debt lies on the shoulders of welfare recipients and poor people. i guess this is why all these folks are scared to live in the city and choose to live in the middle of nowhere (oh, but of course they still bitch about gas taxes being way too high and taxing the oil and gas fields).

i'm as miffed as anyone that the bush tax cuts have been preserved, but our country is obviously stuck in a civil war mindset still. this is why nothing is going to change anytime soon.

[theetruscan]

i'm as miffed as anyone that the bush tax cuts have been preserved, but our country is obviously stuck in a civil war mindset still. this is why nothing is going to change anytime soon.

Let's let the south vote for secession, then actually secede. Bye.

[Ahimsa]

[Faust]

Let's let the south vote for secession, then actually secede. Bye.

That would be amazing.

[Patroklus]

The South has little cultural meccas, and good food. If you want to improve America, carpet bomb the midwest. Their food is awful anyway. Plus, once we get rid of them, there will be both no opposition to sprawling wind and solar farms, and a place to put them all!

[jogu]

whta do u consider southern food and midwest food ? when ive traveled south ive had some good meals but some terrible ones too like tex mex, i thought that genre was rly fuckin bad . my impressions of southern food was lots of buffets , lots of heavy stuff too , and some seafood also. theres chain restaurants that had these breakfast buffets that i liked , cant recall the name now but it had a bear as the mascot . stuff like bowls of grits w the square of butter on top , sausages and bacon and syrup, scrambled eggs . another southern thing i noticed was they often served every kinda drink in those big bulbous glasses that say " coke " on the side even for iced tea .

bein from chicago tho i vastly prefer the stuff i have here BUT there are many times where i wish we had some of those chain restaurants that are down south specially dennys

[MikeN]

at least you have weber grill!

[jogu]

lol yesssss , man i love it there . next time ur in chicago its weber grill for sure , surprised u remember that place lol

[Chinorlz]

Jogu I think you're talkin about Shoneys :)

Sheeiiit, weekend night seafood specials with fried shrimp, "crab cake" stuffed into crab shells, fried fish, fried clam strips. What's not to love?

Then again I grew up in towns where Shoneys and Ponderosa and Sizzlers were plentiful :)

[Patroklus]

whta do u consider southern food

bbq, and soul food. colla greens, catfish, po' boy sauce fried chicken & waffles w/ honey maple syrup, gumbo, got, i say-a GOT DAYUM

bein from chicago tho i vastly prefer the stuff i have here BUT there are many times where i wish we had some of those chain restaurants that are down south specially dennys

thas chicago tho. i mean, surely there's good food everywhere, it's just that the american midwest is one of the least likely places you will find it in. plus, i know it is in the midwest, but man, chicago is way too metropolitan to really be in the midwest

otoh detroit got some good rappers so maybe we should just carpet bomb like, utah. yes. i am fully behind this.

[jogu]

Jogu I think you're talkin about Shoneys :)

Sheeiiit, weekend night seafood specials with fried shrimp, "crab cake" stuffed into crab shells, fried fish, fried clam strips. What's not to love?

Then again I grew up in towns where Shoneys and Ponderosa and Sizzlers were plentiful :)

dude thats it shoneys ! i just looked it up and thats definately it . im looking at their find us map and its a bummer that even tho IL is rite there at the top of the location cluster they left us out . it even looks weird on their map havin that whole area of states have shoneys cept IL . i vividly remember likin it there , at the registers they have this plastic tree and u put your hand in the hole in the middle of it and theres like candy , for some reason that always stands out in my memory of shoneys . we also used to have ponderosas here in chicago like yeeeeeeeeears ago, that was one of my fav places to eat when i was a kid , if i was " good " i could get the ice cream bar where u make ur own sundaes . they took alot of chains out of chicago tho , we dont even have things like red lobsters

[endersgame]

i just came back from court. holy fuck, talk about a system that needs reform. i've been in litigation for over a year and this shit just never ends.

i noticed there are lawyers that don't care about appearance. even when they are in front of the judge, they look like they slept in their suits.