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The problem you have here is differing perspectives on, for instance, current government financial responsibility. The government is currently $36 trillion in

The problem you have here is differing perspectives on, for instance, current government financial responsibility. The government is currently $36 trillion in debt with that debt growing at an exponential rate. Our annual expenditure of interest on the debt has exceeded $1 trillion per year and will soon exceed the entire discretionary budget of the US. And this is happening as growth starts to slow and other countries continue to reduce both their reserves and dependency upon the dollar. Many don't see this as sustainable, or really even remotely sustainable. And so working to create more sound governance and spending today is motivated precisely by an effort to prevent a catastrophic crash. Like think about to back before the housing crash. There were numerous shows on TV about people getting a house (often with near 0 deposit), adding granite counter tops, and then reselling it within weeks for a $20k+ profit. Anybody could see that that sort of economic system could not possibly be stable, but most people have this instinct that a status quo must inherently be stable, but that's just not true. That unstable things have not crashed today is hardly an argument against them crashing tomorrow.

cmdli 2y ago
The trouble is that the statements and their actions don't line up at all. USAID, CFPB, and other government regulatory agencies make up a tiny, tiny portion of our current deficit. Even if these agencies were completely eliminated, it wouldn't do _anything_ to affect our financial troubles. Even completely eliminating every single government worker wouldn't solve the deficit. That's not even considering that these agencies can have positive, not negative, financial impact. A well-regulated economy can avoid disastrous recessions and thereby pay for itself manyfold. Hell, the CFPB was put in place to prevent the exact housing crash situation you just mentioned, but now one private citizen is getting rid of it because... he doesn't like it?
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  Outside of Biden and Obama (first term only interestingly) deficits were far less. As recently as 2015, it was "only" $442 billion, and generally less than a trillion. USAID's budget was upwards of $50 billion, so cutting that single organization brings us 5-10% of the way there. And its primary purpose was propaganda of the sort that, when effective, just ends up driving us into conflicts half way around the world and making it very difficult to ever truly improve relations with 'foreign adversaries.' I'm tired of being at war with Eastasia. And Musk has zero power. He can only make recommendations. The 'President Musk' stuff is a transparent effort to try to foment antagonism between Trump and Musk by exploiting Trump's insecurities.
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    Why do you omit Trump who pushed the government debt higher than Biden (and actually significantly higher than Obama in his second term, thus excluding the GFC)? https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united-states-presidents-have-run-largest-budget-deficits.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united...
    - cycomanic 2y ago
      As a side note Usaid portion of the budget hasn't increased over the last >30 years (despite the large peak due to Ukraine support). https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-do/agency/us-agency-for-international-development/ https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-...
    - ANewFormation 2y ago
      You can see a table of the deficits per year here [1], which should answer your question. [1] - https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306
emseetech 2y ago
Wouldn't debt as a percentage of GDP be a much better metric than debt alone?
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  I think that's another interesting metric. It's also a rather terrifying graph. [1] [1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
  - emseetech 2y ago
    That starts at 1966, go back to 1941 and it's not unprecedented. We're only 3.8% above our 1945 peak. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-t... The 1940's and 1950's reduced it through raising taxes, not cutting social services. There was actually a large expansion of social services and infrastructure projects at the time. Slash and burn economics/austerity are not the only option.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      The reason you saw high spending starting around December 7th 1941, is because that's the day we entered WW2 and started working as the industrial/commercial vessel behind the most expansive war humanity has ever seen. It plummeted afterwards because of dramatic spending cuts after the war ended in 1945. The budget in 1946 cut discretionary spending (which is what funds the military) by 43% (38.5 billion), and then it was cut another 41% in 1947. Inflation adjusted the spending cut in 1946 was $619 billion. The 'great expansion' of social services began in the 60s which led (in part, Vietnam and other issues obviously played a huge role) to the US defaulting on its economic obligations under Bretton Woods in 1971, which is when our current economic era of unconstrained completely fiat spending began.
      - emseetech 2y ago
        | is because that's the day we entered WW2 I'm fully aware (as everyone is). The 1950's expanded social services considerably, including major infrastructure projects like housing and highways. The cost of the GI bill alone after WW2 was $140 billion in today's dollars. Cutting military spending is an option but doesn't seem to be on the table.
cduzz 2y ago
Money is only trusted if everyone agrees that "a number in a ledger" is money. Ultimately, wealth, beyond what you physically control, is only real if everyone else agrees that it's real. Otherwise you're just tapping a rock on another rock and walking out of the store with eggs. And that 36 trillion in debt was created with a complex dance out in the open; I've got some paper who wants some paper I'll give you number go up in a year if you give me number now! And we can all look at the ledger and there are people in robes in a locked room who protect the ledger when we're not looking. If instead we've got a ledger, left floating around the house and garage, and all the people in robes have been fired, and all of a sudden we don't need that tedious "pass laws" stuff to "balance the budget" and the ledger's full of sharpie scribblings, what are the numbers in that ledger? The fewer people who believe that number or ledger, the fewer eggs you'll be able to buy by tapping your rock on someone else's rock. The same goes for other ledgers -- stocks -- the US stock market is trusted only because people trust the numbers that are reported. If you've fired all the regulators, auditors, and enforcers, your stock market will lose trust, and again, the numbers will be the same but worth less because nobody will believe anything.
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  Money has a perception of value because of scarcity + demand. The government could, in theory, 'print' enough money to make every single American a trillionaire tomorrow. Of course all that would do is make the dollar worthless and completely destroy the US economy. I think you would obviously agree. That also means that we must agree that 'money printing' taken to an extreme can have catastrophic effects. So where we disagree is where we are on the line between the points of inherently valuable and stable currency, and lol funny money. When the interest on the debt is starting to exceed our total discretionary budget, let alone at a major inflection point in global economics/relations, I tend to think we're prettty far down that line.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    I'm going to agree with you actually that we should reduce spending and pay down the debt because it's gotten too big especially with respect to the debt/gdp ratio. So we can start on a solid foundation where we both agree. The thing I have trouble with is I don't think the people in government right now talking about reducing the debt by cutting waste and fraud agree with you and me. The reason I think this is because last time they were in full control of the government they also had talked a good game about reducing the debt, but instead they cut taxes for the richest Americans and added to the debt, substantially. They told us it would pay for itself -- that didn't happen. They also did it the time before that, during the Bush Administration. They ran up trillions in debt on a war that we didn't need to go into and we ended up losing, erasing an inherited budget surplus. Now they are talking about ethnic cleansing Gaza, and giving themselves yet another tax break. On the other side of it, they're slashing and burning programs that they oppose on ideological grounds, which as a percentage of the budget won't even move the debt needle a smidge. And they can't show these programs were actually fraudulent or wasteful. So my question is: why do you trust these people to cut the debt and deficit if they haven't been able to do so at any point in the past 20 years, a period during which they had majority control of the government multiple times, and they're proposing the same failed playbook?

cmdli 2y ago

The trouble is that the statements and their actions don't line up at all. USAID, CFPB, and other government regulatory agencies make up a tiny, tiny portion of our current deficit. Even if these agencies were completely eliminated, it wouldn't do _anything_ to affect our financial troubles. Even completely eliminating every single government worker wouldn't solve the deficit. That's not even considering that these agencies can have positive, not negative, financial impact. A well-regulated economy can avoid disastrous recessions and thereby pay for itself manyfold. Hell, the CFPB was put in place to prevent the exact housing crash situation you just mentioned, but now one private citizen is getting rid of it because... he doesn't like it?

ANewFormation 2y ago
Outside of Biden and Obama (first term only interestingly) deficits were far less. As recently as 2015, it was "only" $442 billion, and generally less than a trillion. USAID's budget was upwards of $50 billion, so cutting that single organization brings us 5-10% of the way there. And its primary purpose was propaganda of the sort that, when effective, just ends up driving us into conflicts half way around the world and making it very difficult to ever truly improve relations with 'foreign adversaries.' I'm tired of being at war with Eastasia. And Musk has zero power. He can only make recommendations. The 'President Musk' stuff is a transparent effort to try to foment antagonism between Trump and Musk by exploiting Trump's insecurities.
- cycomanic 2y ago
  Why do you omit Trump who pushed the government debt higher than Biden (and actually significantly higher than Obama in his second term, thus excluding the GFC)? https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united-states-presidents-have-run-largest-budget-deficits.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/which-united...
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    As a side note Usaid portion of the budget hasn't increased over the last >30 years (despite the large peak due to Ukraine support). https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-do/agency/us-agency-for-international-development/ https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-...
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    You can see a table of the deficits per year here [1], which should answer your question. [1] - https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306

emseetech 2y ago

Wouldn't debt as a percentage of GDP be a much better metric than debt alone?

ANewFormation 2y ago
I think that's another interesting metric. It's also a rather terrifying graph. [1] [1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
- emseetech 2y ago
  That starts at 1966, go back to 1941 and it's not unprecedented. We're only 3.8% above our 1945 peak. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-t... The 1940's and 1950's reduced it through raising taxes, not cutting social services. There was actually a large expansion of social services and infrastructure projects at the time. Slash and burn economics/austerity are not the only option.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    The reason you saw high spending starting around December 7th 1941, is because that's the day we entered WW2 and started working as the industrial/commercial vessel behind the most expansive war humanity has ever seen. It plummeted afterwards because of dramatic spending cuts after the war ended in 1945. The budget in 1946 cut discretionary spending (which is what funds the military) by 43% (38.5 billion), and then it was cut another 41% in 1947. Inflation adjusted the spending cut in 1946 was $619 billion. The 'great expansion' of social services began in the 60s which led (in part, Vietnam and other issues obviously played a huge role) to the US defaulting on its economic obligations under Bretton Woods in 1971, which is when our current economic era of unconstrained completely fiat spending began.
    - emseetech 2y ago
      | is because that's the day we entered WW2 I'm fully aware (as everyone is). The 1950's expanded social services considerably, including major infrastructure projects like housing and highways. The cost of the GI bill alone after WW2 was $140 billion in today's dollars. Cutting military spending is an option but doesn't seem to be on the table.

cduzz 2y ago

Money is only trusted if everyone agrees that "a number in a ledger" is money. Ultimately, wealth, beyond what you physically control, is only real if everyone else agrees that it's real. Otherwise you're just tapping a rock on another rock and walking out of the store with eggs. And that 36 trillion in debt was created with a complex dance out in the open; I've got some paper who wants some paper I'll give you number go up in a year if you give me number now! And we can all look at the ledger and there are people in robes in a locked room who protect the ledger when we're not looking. If instead we've got a ledger, left floating around the house and garage, and all the people in robes have been fired, and all of a sudden we don't need that tedious "pass laws" stuff to "balance the budget" and the ledger's full of sharpie scribblings, what are the numbers in that ledger? The fewer people who believe that number or ledger, the fewer eggs you'll be able to buy by tapping your rock on someone else's rock. The same goes for other ledgers -- stocks -- the US stock market is trusted only because people trust the numbers that are reported. If you've fired all the regulators, auditors, and enforcers, your stock market will lose trust, and again, the numbers will be the same but worth less because nobody will believe anything.

ANewFormation 2y ago
Money has a perception of value because of scarcity + demand. The government could, in theory, 'print' enough money to make every single American a trillionaire tomorrow. Of course all that would do is make the dollar worthless and completely destroy the US economy. I think you would obviously agree. That also means that we must agree that 'money printing' taken to an extreme can have catastrophic effects. So where we disagree is where we are on the line between the points of inherently valuable and stable currency, and lol funny money. When the interest on the debt is starting to exceed our total discretionary budget, let alone at a major inflection point in global economics/relations, I tend to think we're prettty far down that line.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  I'm going to agree with you actually that we should reduce spending and pay down the debt because it's gotten too big especially with respect to the debt/gdp ratio. So we can start on a solid foundation where we both agree. The thing I have trouble with is I don't think the people in government right now talking about reducing the debt by cutting waste and fraud agree with you and me. The reason I think this is because last time they were in full control of the government they also had talked a good game about reducing the debt, but instead they cut taxes for the richest Americans and added to the debt, substantially. They told us it would pay for itself -- that didn't happen. They also did it the time before that, during the Bush Administration. They ran up trillions in debt on a war that we didn't need to go into and we ended up losing, erasing an inherited budget surplus. Now they are talking about ethnic cleansing Gaza, and giving themselves yet another tax break. On the other side of it, they're slashing and burning programs that they oppose on ideological grounds, which as a percentage of the budget won't even move the debt needle a smidge. And they can't show these programs were actually fraudulent or wasteful. So my question is: why do you trust these people to cut the debt and deficit if they haven't been able to do so at any point in the past 20 years, a period during which they had majority control of the government multiple times, and they're proposing the same failed playbook?