Brad S said:
1. Dude, I don't watch Frontline and I consider them to be terribly dishonest or stupid - I really believe they are biased and dishonest, not so much stupid. I've seen several times frontline refer to the "Reagan Bush deficits, and ofcourse Reagan inherited a 1 tril debt that grew to 4 tril in 12 years. If you do the math, at the prevailing interest rates Reagan inherited, paying interest on the debt would double it twice in 12 years. OFcourse national debt should be expressed as debt over GDP not simply debt, but frontline is too biased or stupid to grasp this principle so they puke more liberal dogma - on my FUC$ing dime. If you can deduct a pbs contribution I should be able to deduct a Rush Limbaugh contribution.
2. I agree many people shouldn't manage their own investiment portfolio, hell, some people hire their hair cut, I can't even time my wife's suburban, some people are mandated to hire a plumer to change a wax ring on their toilet. I hire my taxes done. BFD - some people shouldn't manage their own portfolios - and frontline acts like there is a story here.
3. Here is the story I'd like Frontline to address, why is freedom of choice the law of the land when it comes to exterminating babies, but I can't manage my money.
4. Where did I ever blame an employee for "the Enron fiasco" I didn't. I blame Enron employees for mismanaging their portfolios. Nice try though. Did you commit this error due to stupidity or dishonesty?
5. Yes Bush has been president during larger deficits, but when you get advanced beyond econ 101, you'll understand that these deficits were coming with or without Bush. The recession began during Klinton and Klinton exaserbated the recession by doing nothing about it because to do anything would include admitting he inherited an improving economy and his taxes caused a recession despite the tech buble that he had no cause in. Dude, you need to restrict your lame misunderstandings to pbs watching, volvo driving jerkoffs because I easily get tired of your stupidity.
1. Brad, inflation is a monetar phenonena. It simply means there is too much money in the economy for the amount of goods/services. This is the main factor that affects interest rates, not necessarily the size of the debt. The minimum payment on the debt (interest) manytimes has little relevance to the risk the debt brings or its future consequences. It is only a measure of the "rent" for the money in a given economy. As I said, this "rent" for the use of this capital n the U.S. is more closely associated with inflation, not the consequences of the tax liablity necessary to pay the debt in the future. One day that will come and when it does, it will not be pretty. The debt is backed by the ability of the U.S. govt. to tax all of us. I will let you draw your own conclusions as to what will happen in the future when SS surplus can no longer be used for govt. debt servicing an it has to be paid back out in benefits (think higher taxes or much lower payments in SS). We are only fooling ourselves with the current policies.
I like discussions about economics but not with someone who needs to use profanity to show thier emotional baggage that largely comes from a right wing nut hipocrit talk show nut. I like to listen to Rush sometimes but I have no problem discerning fact from fiction as you seem to. Same with pbs. When you listen to either one, you still have to think on your own.
As far as how the national debt is expressed, you should familiarize yourself with all of the ways it can be expressed and what it means. I do. It is still very concerning no matter how you look at it.
2. Since you didn't watch the Frontline show, and I only posted one small paraphrase from it, why are you judging that particular epidsode? I was only answering the argument that was posed about Enron's retirement plan (and a lot of other companies's retirement plan set up that seems to give choices but really doesn't). The Frontline show offered little new information to me (my discussions about UAL with Agman on this board predated the show) but it was very informative about the issues and actual events regarding retirement in the economy. Again, I might have the knowledge base to understand all of the information they brought up in the show but the average Joe does not. It was very informative, and accurate, in that regard. This thread wasn't about Frontline, it was about Enron. You are the one trying to warp it into that discussion.
3. You can manage your own money, Brad S. You can also determine whether or not you will have an abortion or influence those around you to not have one if you so chose. It is still a free country and you should work on both of these issues. Having the govt. save you on either one is foolish. Submit your request to Frontline and see if they might be intrested in a story for you if you like.
4. The Enron fiasco was managed by those who were just convicted. I would be mad too a company I invested in did the things they did. The employees have every right to expect a better preformance by public companies. Our systems of accountability that have been legislated have been shown to not be working the way they should and Congress, in its attempt to cater to the businesses that feeds their campaign money additiction, are not adequately addressing these issues when they first show up. Neither is the juducical system or the excecutive branch. As I said, we have a sorry bunch of politicians running the country right now that don't know how to govern.
5. Deficits happen when Congress can not help but spend the taxpayer money faster than the govt. can bring it in. There are economic reasons why some deficits are not necessarily "bad" and may help the growth in the economy. (Has to do with the money supply, the velocity of money; Those reasons should not be continually used to excuse Congress's perenial problem of overspending. Congress/the pres. leveraging us to a very dangerous level in light of the upcoming SS and medicaid actuarial problems. I have seen the consequences of such policies in people's lives and it isn't pretty.
To understand this topic on a more in depth level than Rush Limbaugh can provide, you need to know some of the basics. Here is a site for the basic equation of money supply:
http://tinyurl.com/phptm
Before getting too deep into this, you might want do do as Dave Ramsey suggests and listen to the advice your grandmother would have given you. If you had a good grandmother, you could save yourself a lot of hassle trying to understand it. Rush Limbaugh is no substitute for a good grandmother.