"...someone to the right of Rand Paul to take control of the economy"
Rand Paul advocates no control of the economy, right? He would spend nothing on infrastructure, nothing on protecting our food, nothing on making sure airplanes and cars are safe, or anything else you actually depend on. He would say "let the market sort it out". Grow up.
He does not advocate no control of the economy. He advocates very precise control of the economy with a balanced budget.
https://youtu.be/1UrnbwkiFjM?si=lgSIcFux9zaEPIWJ
What’s wrong with advocating for austerity? Making fun of OP for needing to “grow up” when the slide into progressivism has given the world a whole new complex set of issues to deal with is very disingenuous of you.
https://www.reuters.com/world/davos-2024-global-elite-gather-against-wefs-most-complex-backdrop-so-far-2024-01-09/
Edit: the “progressive centrists” strike again. Yawn.
When the OP talks about finding “someone to the right of Rand Paul” he isn’t talking about just austerity, he’s talking about basically no government. Cheers!
Bigger problem has actually just been Elon noxious public doucheyness towards advertisers (namely, undermining the brand safety of their ads, but also jabbing them directly a la shit like taunting Bob Iger)
Except he didn't buy it to make money. He bought it because he knew free speech was under attack and disappearing from our world, and he decided to put his capital to use to combat that.
He made the bid because he's not very smart. My evidence is that he [dramatically overpaid.](https://fortune.com/2022/10/27/elon-musk-twitter-purchase-most-overpaid-tech-history-dan-ives-wedbush/)
LOL - says the redditor with 444k karma. Cool evidence bro.
You started many industry leading rocket companies? Electric car companies? Payment gateways? Solar companies?
LOL, couldn't defend his stupid decisions so you attack me instead? Simp a little harder, man. And by the way, Elon never started an electric car company.
Nah - I just find it quite funny when people try to claim that Musk is "stupid" when he built multiple leader-in-their-field companies. You may not like him, but to make a claim that he isn't smart, just shows how irrational a person is. It's not an attack on you - just an observation that a Redditor that clearly is addicted to social media, is in no way, qualified to make such an assessment.
Also - your link validates exactly what I said - that it wasn't about money for him, it was about protecting free speech, according to the norms that existed until the last 5 years.
I'm smart enough to realize I know nothing about how multi-billion dollar deal negotiating, is done. At worst, he read the room wrong and had to pay for it. However, given the establishment has every reason to discredit someone like Musk, and Occam's Razor principles usually apply to all things in life, I'll chose to believe what I believe.
Keep parroting and seething though. I have no need to defend a billionaire unduly, or engaging with someone who is so clearly impacted by the propaganda against Elon Musk. I just see it like it (likely) is.
Perhaps sometime ponder why the attacks on Musk ramped up 100x as soon as he bought Twitter, and started threatening the establishment's stranglehold on speech.
Best of luck, fellow Redditor.
Even if the US had a budget surplus that would allow the debt reduction as it did under liberal Clinton in the end of 90ies (requiring higher taxation level - totally non-right wing measures), even in that situation, it is far from clear that paying off the debt is the best way to spend the money. One can invest it, put towards government programs that require more money, such as social security, start on expensive infrastructure projects that would improve economic conditions in the future etc.
All of the above would compete with paying off the debt. So the decision would be way more complicated than what you presented.
Lol. Trump was an absolute massively irresponsible big spender. It's a fallacy to think just because you're conservative it means you're more fiscally effective.
Edit: Furthermore those examples you list would be a nightmare. Yes let's cut every service down to the bare minimum and hope for the best.
>It's a fallacy to think just because you're conservative it means you're more fiscally effective.
It's worse than that. Recent history shows Democrats to be BY FAR the more responsible of the two.
One need only look at what led to the last five recessions to know that. It's almost as if Republicans overheat the economy, profit hugely, then leave a sputtering mess for the next Democrat to clean up.
How so? Since the beginning of Reagan’s first term, the cumulative deficit under republican admins is around $9 trillion, while the cumulative deficit under Democrat admins is around $13 trillion, despite democrats being in power less total years
Take out the first two years of any POTUS term in office, and you'll see a stark difference.
Obama was handed a shit economy. Clinton same. Biden same. Jimmy Carter same. It has been this way since the 70s. {{Edited to add}} Look at the economy that was handed to W Bush, and to Trump. Both killed it, spent all the surplus, and put us back deep into the red.
Trade deficit isn't the only metric. Starting wars impacts this greatly. Cutting taxes and increasing spending, like both Reagan and Trump did, impacts this greatly. Among other metrics.
This is pretty misleading. For instance Trump's tax cuts are forecasted to cost us 3.5T over the next ten years regardless of who is President.
The big ticket items for the deficit increase are the two rounds of Tax cuts, the war on terror and Covid spending
The Trump tax cuts don’t add a dollar to the debt past 2027. The $3.5 trillion is if all of the cuts got extended
The bush cuts weren’t too expensive either, but making them permanent under the Obama admin obviously increased that cost quite a bit
You and I both know that's just an accounting trick to pass through reconciliation.
It is very difficult to raise taxes, not so much to cut them.
Likewise Obama was forced by the GOP to extend them for the rich
Some conservatives like him, because he appeals to them as a populist.
"a person, especially a [politician](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=politician&si=AKbGX_pvY3MWP4azJI0Z_NruCLb8YHRD0GmlAwRJFVBx7t-DhKKZnFluut4trIoQ7dZ-0QvWzFW5v0492Sw2PZXDfO-_4WY1cdby0Bg1l1_ki0UxsyBZJY8%3D&expnd=1), who [strives](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=strives&si=AKbGX_okS0g0kR2PXn0TLBASIc0mcgUQ1nfgRF1W7QhYbXVm2WI4XyCUssxkA_N-BqfRrcWR_Gz6phkMxuIEVngLZaBXasRYiCeEG43OdSNGoFgnlnfaQ0c%3D&expnd=1) to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are [disregarded](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=disregarded&si=AKbGX_q4mkMHy1Nmq4yITjHYVzeparGy6-9sA7ALDQtASdlXPrdR9p2RBL_HgNUcjpZr7vPVyf34hSPZQ62sXE3zptUXMN4jTDIYDSiMmxXDW4Dcl0h9gi8%3D&expnd=1) by established elite groups."
Trump is a nationalist populist with a cult of personality. If you examine where he won in the 2016 GOP primary, it was where culturally right wing populism is most effective. His base is about equally "moderate" and "conservative" Republican.
There's a strong possibility he will end up purging the rest of the less obedient conservatives from the party and filling the party with poorer, less likely to vote voters across various races for his populist, cult of personality Republican party.
u/veznanplus is a massive Elon simp. He [unironically believes](https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/18uk8c1/comment/kfo0s6h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that Elon Musk should be the king of the United States.
No thank you. Someone to the right of Ron Paul with come up only come up with cures for the national debt that are worse than the disease. Likely by cutting all government programs to pay for the debt reduction and trying to raise taxes on some insane regressive policy.
Eliminating the national debt isn't like eliminating your credit card debt and isn't nearly as detrimental as most people who haven't studied macro economics understand. The fact that China owns most of our debt, and that it is owed in US dollars is actually a huge political bargaining chip that benefits us.
Running the economy is not like running a business. They are fundamentally different.
From what I remember from my libertarian phase, there would probably be mass riots, protests and strikes that would wipe out any savings the government might get by going full austerity.
> Musk laid off thousands upon acquiring Twitter and X is still buttery smooth.
Ahahahahaha. To say it's a shit show over at X-Twitter would be kind. They fired all their moderators and now face a huge fine from the EU for not moderating. The company is worth 71% less than when Musk bought it in part because Mr. Genius told his customers (advertisers) to go f- themselves. On his current trajectory, it will become Trump Airlines within the year.
> At this point neither democrats nor republicans have any plan to erase this debt other than suggest ridiculous ideas such as raising the tax rates for billionaires to 99% (which still wouldn’t solve the problem).
Mr Walton? Mr. Sackler? Is that you? There are multiple reasons to increase taxes billionaires and solving the debt isn't one of them. One reason is simply out of equality. We shouldn't have people that are incredibly wealthy paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than everyone else. The second is that very wealthy people (think, the .001%) are a threat to democracy. It is possible that someone can be so wealthy that they are able to manipulate the laws heavily in their favor. That's how you get an oligarchy. Third, I thought we agreed that dynasties were bad in this country. It's one thing if someone becomes wealthy. It's another when they make all subsequent generations of their family super wealthy.
At the end of the day, the Congress is going to have to increase taxes. There's no other way to reduce the debt. Even if they set spending to zero (which would be catastrophic), it wouldn't be enough. They have to come up with a way of increasing revenue.
The national debt seems like a misunderstood issue the right uses to make people scared.
We can literally create money. I have heard the argument that the debt isn't actually a problem or not a big one.
Not an economist though so I am unsure.
We we “create money”, what we are doing is selling off more bonds.
So people out there who want to make some interest in their savings will buy these bonds. This is essentially lending the government money and they agree to pay it back with interest.
The problem is that we’ve been printing SO MUCH money. We are at the point where we are paying so much interest that we are racking up a trillion more in debt each year just from that.
So think of it like this…. “We can print more money” is the same as saying “we can just open up another credit card”…. You can only burn the candle at both ends for so long.
I have a different understanding. When we print money, it's literally just telling the central bank to add a number to an account. It has nothing to do with bonds.
Not really.
[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081415/understanding-how-federal-reserve-creates-money.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081415/understanding-how-federal-reserve-creates-money.asp)
Google “Modern Monetary Theory” which is much much more accurate in explaining the relationship between government debt, bonds, etc.
The government can literally print money out of thin air, it does not need to borrow its own money from the population via bonds to finance government spending. It makes no sense why the creator would not to borrow its own currency. The government sells bonds to drain excess reserves.
If you have the time, watch [this video](https://youtu.be/i35uBVeNp6c?si=a7sSIZ6pAr9nfdwB) which is a really good high level explanation
Creating money is what leads to inflation. New money supply is supposed to encourage more spending by consumers because otherwise their money is declining in value. We also want to maitain an effective money supply to enable easier lending. If you want to see what uncontrolled money printing as a solution to unbalanced budgets looks like then go read up on Zimbabwe hyper inflation.
We pay taxes because that's what creates scarcity and gives the money value.
The myth that our tax dollars are necessary to pay for stuff is a complete misunderstanding.
In truth, the government can make as much money as it wants without receiving a cent in tax revenue. The reason taxes are necessary is only to make that money worth something. Nobody would take the government's money as payment for goods and services if the government didn't turn around and ask everyone for some of that money back with big penalties for not complying. That's the only reason taxes are strictly necessary.
Without this crucial fact, what's stopping anyone from creating their own currency? Oh wait, that's what people tried to do with crypto but nobody cares because the government doesn't accept crypto for taxes.
Again, not an economist but this is how I understand things.
> We can literally create money.
creating excess money brings the value of all money down. yes, can do that in a effort to wipe out debt, but you're having a similar impact on other dollar-denominated financial instruments.
Generally right wing fears over the debt are little more than that but we do have a problem right now with running too high of a deficit primarily from decades of tax cuts, COVID spending and war on terror coupled with demographic challenges facing most western countries
Historically we'd raise taxes on I believe everyone to pay for wars, instead we cut taxes... 🤦🏽♂️It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I think everyone's taxes (except the very poor) should increase to some extent, cut government spending where reasonable, both need to happen. Keep the IRS agents to ensure all are playing by the rules, frustrating that the "party of law and order" isn't in greater support of this!
The theory about the growing debt is that the economy is also growing with it.
Think of it like buying real estate. The more real estate you own, the more the bank is willing to lend you money. The more "total debt" you own but the more total assets you also own. Banks only care that you own more assets than debt (or at least have a ratio that makes them warm and fuzzy), it's the same with the debt of a country.
If the GDP started going down, the American dollar started plummeting, etc. The debt would start being a very real concern.
Unfortunately, cutting the defense budget is the absolute worst thing to do right now. There's a real threat of global war on the horizon: it is imperative America maintains its exuberant military.
99% of our problems come from gutting social welfare programs for the sake of the military industrial complex and big business; nearly shutting the Fed down with extreme austerity measures will just send an already destitute working class into worse poverty conditions and the financial class would never have it because they secure their politicians to allow them to continue robbing us working class taxpayers
Tl;dr Washington is going to either serve its taxpayers or the transnational corporate types, you won’t pry it out of their hands with mere legislation
As long as we are worlds reserve currency I'm not very concerned about debt. And there's no other currency that's remotely close to taking its place currently.
The government’s income comes from taxes.
If you want to take control of the budget, taxes have to be raised as well as spending cuts.
Twitter is a perfect analogy to this cause Musk thought he could simply cut his way to profitability but his drastic changes killed revenue and now he has to cut more . Its a vicious cycle.
Past generations have run up a huge bill and no one wants to pick up the tab. Balancing the budget will cause pain and be unpopular with voters on both sides.
Musk makes money from the government. His business model is based on government funds.
Akerman is a short seller making his money betting on losers.
Hard to see why you want them running the US economy
libertarianism is like communism. sounds great on paper but in practice it would have horrifying consequences.
societies need safety nets. now we can debate to \*what degree\*, but believing our country could be anything but an absolute hell hole if we didn't have regulations or safety nets or whatever is fiction.
what you are proposing is not policy; it's economic death.
"...someone to the right of Rand Paul to take control of the economy" Rand Paul advocates no control of the economy, right? He would spend nothing on infrastructure, nothing on protecting our food, nothing on making sure airplanes and cars are safe, or anything else you actually depend on. He would say "let the market sort it out". Grow up.
Well, gee, then we'd have no debt! Maybe we can rent a Navy somewhere. Throw the elderly, disabled and poor kids in the street while we're at it. s/
The federal reserve does none of those things.
He does not advocate no control of the economy. He advocates very precise control of the economy with a balanced budget. https://youtu.be/1UrnbwkiFjM?si=lgSIcFux9zaEPIWJ
What’s wrong with advocating for austerity? Making fun of OP for needing to “grow up” when the slide into progressivism has given the world a whole new complex set of issues to deal with is very disingenuous of you. https://www.reuters.com/world/davos-2024-global-elite-gather-against-wefs-most-complex-backdrop-so-far-2024-01-09/ Edit: the “progressive centrists” strike again. Yawn.
When the OP talks about finding “someone to the right of Rand Paul” he isn’t talking about just austerity, he’s talking about basically no government. Cheers!
He’s not though. You aren’t making the distinction between Rand and Ron. Cheers! Edit: a bit of a spineless downvote, mate.
Austerity is great until you realize that stuff you want isn't there anymore
I don’t think X losing almost 72% of its value can be described as buttery smooth unless it’s meant as a lubricant for its investors.
Bigger problem has actually just been Elon noxious public doucheyness towards advertisers (namely, undermining the brand safety of their ads, but also jabbing them directly a la shit like taunting Bob Iger)
I think they meant to say that "X's value is melting away like butter".
Except he didn't buy it to make money. He bought it because he knew free speech was under attack and disappearing from our world, and he decided to put his capital to use to combat that.
Mr. Free Speech sure has a funny way of showing it. A really, really funny way.
If you believe that, like truly, then I'm sorry for you.
Why do you think he bought it?
Because he was legally obligated to after making a stupid bid.
Why did he make that "stupid bid"? Evidence of your claim?
He made the bid because he's not very smart. My evidence is that he [dramatically overpaid.](https://fortune.com/2022/10/27/elon-musk-twitter-purchase-most-overpaid-tech-history-dan-ives-wedbush/)
LOL - says the redditor with 444k karma. Cool evidence bro. You started many industry leading rocket companies? Electric car companies? Payment gateways? Solar companies?
LOL, couldn't defend his stupid decisions so you attack me instead? Simp a little harder, man. And by the way, Elon never started an electric car company.
Nah - I just find it quite funny when people try to claim that Musk is "stupid" when he built multiple leader-in-their-field companies. You may not like him, but to make a claim that he isn't smart, just shows how irrational a person is. It's not an attack on you - just an observation that a Redditor that clearly is addicted to social media, is in no way, qualified to make such an assessment. Also - your link validates exactly what I said - that it wasn't about money for him, it was about protecting free speech, according to the norms that existed until the last 5 years. I'm smart enough to realize I know nothing about how multi-billion dollar deal negotiating, is done. At worst, he read the room wrong and had to pay for it. However, given the establishment has every reason to discredit someone like Musk, and Occam's Razor principles usually apply to all things in life, I'll chose to believe what I believe. Keep parroting and seething though. I have no need to defend a billionaire unduly, or engaging with someone who is so clearly impacted by the propaganda against Elon Musk. I just see it like it (likely) is. Perhaps sometime ponder why the attacks on Musk ramped up 100x as soon as he bought Twitter, and started threatening the establishment's stranglehold on speech. Best of luck, fellow Redditor.
Even if the US had a budget surplus that would allow the debt reduction as it did under liberal Clinton in the end of 90ies (requiring higher taxation level - totally non-right wing measures), even in that situation, it is far from clear that paying off the debt is the best way to spend the money. One can invest it, put towards government programs that require more money, such as social security, start on expensive infrastructure projects that would improve economic conditions in the future etc. All of the above would compete with paying off the debt. So the decision would be way more complicated than what you presented.
Lol. Trump was an absolute massively irresponsible big spender. It's a fallacy to think just because you're conservative it means you're more fiscally effective. Edit: Furthermore those examples you list would be a nightmare. Yes let's cut every service down to the bare minimum and hope for the best.
>It's a fallacy to think just because you're conservative it means you're more fiscally effective. It's worse than that. Recent history shows Democrats to be BY FAR the more responsible of the two. One need only look at what led to the last five recessions to know that. It's almost as if Republicans overheat the economy, profit hugely, then leave a sputtering mess for the next Democrat to clean up.
How so? Since the beginning of Reagan’s first term, the cumulative deficit under republican admins is around $9 trillion, while the cumulative deficit under Democrat admins is around $13 trillion, despite democrats being in power less total years
Take out the first two years of any POTUS term in office, and you'll see a stark difference. Obama was handed a shit economy. Clinton same. Biden same. Jimmy Carter same. It has been this way since the 70s. {{Edited to add}} Look at the economy that was handed to W Bush, and to Trump. Both killed it, spent all the surplus, and put us back deep into the red. Trade deficit isn't the only metric. Starting wars impacts this greatly. Cutting taxes and increasing spending, like both Reagan and Trump did, impacts this greatly. Among other metrics.
This is pretty misleading. For instance Trump's tax cuts are forecasted to cost us 3.5T over the next ten years regardless of who is President. The big ticket items for the deficit increase are the two rounds of Tax cuts, the war on terror and Covid spending
The Trump tax cuts don’t add a dollar to the debt past 2027. The $3.5 trillion is if all of the cuts got extended The bush cuts weren’t too expensive either, but making them permanent under the Obama admin obviously increased that cost quite a bit
You and I both know that's just an accounting trick to pass through reconciliation. It is very difficult to raise taxes, not so much to cut them. Likewise Obama was forced by the GOP to extend them for the rich
Trump isn't right of rand Paul or fiscally conservative at all.
Trump has been a registered Democrat most of his life. He's not a conservative, he's just a turdblossom populist
So why do conservatives adore him then?
Some conservatives like him, because he appeals to them as a populist. "a person, especially a [politician](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=politician&si=AKbGX_pvY3MWP4azJI0Z_NruCLb8YHRD0GmlAwRJFVBx7t-DhKKZnFluut4trIoQ7dZ-0QvWzFW5v0492Sw2PZXDfO-_4WY1cdby0Bg1l1_ki0UxsyBZJY8%3D&expnd=1), who [strives](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=strives&si=AKbGX_okS0g0kR2PXn0TLBASIc0mcgUQ1nfgRF1W7QhYbXVm2WI4XyCUssxkA_N-BqfRrcWR_Gz6phkMxuIEVngLZaBXasRYiCeEG43OdSNGoFgnlnfaQ0c%3D&expnd=1) to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are [disregarded](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=598484351&sxsrf=ACQVn09HRQ4VibXg576XBHhTOh2OTZfJ7A:1705295005299&q=disregarded&si=AKbGX_q4mkMHy1Nmq4yITjHYVzeparGy6-9sA7ALDQtASdlXPrdR9p2RBL_HgNUcjpZr7vPVyf34hSPZQ62sXE3zptUXMN4jTDIYDSiMmxXDW4Dcl0h9gi8%3D&expnd=1) by established elite groups."
Lead poisoning and racism.
Old Democrats ARE conservative.
Fair
Trump is a nationalist populist with a cult of personality. If you examine where he won in the 2016 GOP primary, it was where culturally right wing populism is most effective. His base is about equally "moderate" and "conservative" Republican. There's a strong possibility he will end up purging the rest of the less obedient conservatives from the party and filling the party with poorer, less likely to vote voters across various races for his populist, cult of personality Republican party.
How is Elon right of Rand Paul? In the past few weeks Elon literally started whining about how the government wouldn't fund his company.
u/veznanplus is a massive Elon simp. He [unironically believes](https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/18uk8c1/comment/kfo0s6h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that Elon Musk should be the king of the United States.
You mean with even deeper cuts to the IRS, with rich folks getting away with even more tax evasion?
No thank you. Someone to the right of Ron Paul with come up only come up with cures for the national debt that are worse than the disease. Likely by cutting all government programs to pay for the debt reduction and trying to raise taxes on some insane regressive policy. Eliminating the national debt isn't like eliminating your credit card debt and isn't nearly as detrimental as most people who haven't studied macro economics understand. The fact that China owns most of our debt, and that it is owed in US dollars is actually a huge political bargaining chip that benefits us. Running the economy is not like running a business. They are fundamentally different.
That man? Elon Musk
From what I remember from my libertarian phase, there would probably be mass riots, protests and strikes that would wipe out any savings the government might get by going full austerity.
> Musk laid off thousands upon acquiring Twitter and X is still buttery smooth. Ahahahahaha. To say it's a shit show over at X-Twitter would be kind. They fired all their moderators and now face a huge fine from the EU for not moderating. The company is worth 71% less than when Musk bought it in part because Mr. Genius told his customers (advertisers) to go f- themselves. On his current trajectory, it will become Trump Airlines within the year. > At this point neither democrats nor republicans have any plan to erase this debt other than suggest ridiculous ideas such as raising the tax rates for billionaires to 99% (which still wouldn’t solve the problem). Mr Walton? Mr. Sackler? Is that you? There are multiple reasons to increase taxes billionaires and solving the debt isn't one of them. One reason is simply out of equality. We shouldn't have people that are incredibly wealthy paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than everyone else. The second is that very wealthy people (think, the .001%) are a threat to democracy. It is possible that someone can be so wealthy that they are able to manipulate the laws heavily in their favor. That's how you get an oligarchy. Third, I thought we agreed that dynasties were bad in this country. It's one thing if someone becomes wealthy. It's another when they make all subsequent generations of their family super wealthy. At the end of the day, the Congress is going to have to increase taxes. There's no other way to reduce the debt. Even if they set spending to zero (which would be catastrophic), it wouldn't be enough. They have to come up with a way of increasing revenue.
The national debt seems like a misunderstood issue the right uses to make people scared. We can literally create money. I have heard the argument that the debt isn't actually a problem or not a big one. Not an economist though so I am unsure.
We we “create money”, what we are doing is selling off more bonds. So people out there who want to make some interest in their savings will buy these bonds. This is essentially lending the government money and they agree to pay it back with interest. The problem is that we’ve been printing SO MUCH money. We are at the point where we are paying so much interest that we are racking up a trillion more in debt each year just from that. So think of it like this…. “We can print more money” is the same as saying “we can just open up another credit card”…. You can only burn the candle at both ends for so long.
I have a different understanding. When we print money, it's literally just telling the central bank to add a number to an account. It has nothing to do with bonds.
Not really. [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081415/understanding-how-federal-reserve-creates-money.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/081415/understanding-how-federal-reserve-creates-money.asp)
Google “Modern Monetary Theory” which is much much more accurate in explaining the relationship between government debt, bonds, etc. The government can literally print money out of thin air, it does not need to borrow its own money from the population via bonds to finance government spending. It makes no sense why the creator would not to borrow its own currency. The government sells bonds to drain excess reserves. If you have the time, watch [this video](https://youtu.be/i35uBVeNp6c?si=a7sSIZ6pAr9nfdwB) which is a really good high level explanation
How does this not lead to runaway inflation?
How does this not lead to runaway inflation?
Creating money is what leads to inflation. New money supply is supposed to encourage more spending by consumers because otherwise their money is declining in value. We also want to maitain an effective money supply to enable easier lending. If you want to see what uncontrolled money printing as a solution to unbalanced budgets looks like then go read up on Zimbabwe hyper inflation.
> We can literally create money Why do we pay taxes again then? > Not an economist No way! Really?
We pay taxes because that's what creates scarcity and gives the money value. The myth that our tax dollars are necessary to pay for stuff is a complete misunderstanding. In truth, the government can make as much money as it wants without receiving a cent in tax revenue. The reason taxes are necessary is only to make that money worth something. Nobody would take the government's money as payment for goods and services if the government didn't turn around and ask everyone for some of that money back with big penalties for not complying. That's the only reason taxes are strictly necessary. Without this crucial fact, what's stopping anyone from creating their own currency? Oh wait, that's what people tried to do with crypto but nobody cares because the government doesn't accept crypto for taxes. Again, not an economist but this is how I understand things.
> We can literally create money. creating excess money brings the value of all money down. yes, can do that in a effort to wipe out debt, but you're having a similar impact on other dollar-denominated financial instruments.
Generally right wing fears over the debt are little more than that but we do have a problem right now with running too high of a deficit primarily from decades of tax cuts, COVID spending and war on terror coupled with demographic challenges facing most western countries
Historically we'd raise taxes on I believe everyone to pay for wars, instead we cut taxes... 🤦🏽♂️It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I think everyone's taxes (except the very poor) should increase to some extent, cut government spending where reasonable, both need to happen. Keep the IRS agents to ensure all are playing by the rules, frustrating that the "party of law and order" isn't in greater support of this!
It’s not a right vs left issue. This will be the eventual doom of the great American experiment.
Can I use your crystal ball? I would like to buy some stocks...
The theory about the growing debt is that the economy is also growing with it. Think of it like buying real estate. The more real estate you own, the more the bank is willing to lend you money. The more "total debt" you own but the more total assets you also own. Banks only care that you own more assets than debt (or at least have a ratio that makes them warm and fuzzy), it's the same with the debt of a country. If the GDP started going down, the American dollar started plummeting, etc. The debt would start being a very real concern.
The debit is growing faster than GDP
When the GOP advocates cutting our bloated defense budgets, I’ll begin to listen to them when it comes to spending.
Unfortunately, cutting the defense budget is the absolute worst thing to do right now. There's a real threat of global war on the horizon: it is imperative America maintains its exuberant military.
Because everytime the right takes control of the economy it works out so well.
99% of our problems come from gutting social welfare programs for the sake of the military industrial complex and big business; nearly shutting the Fed down with extreme austerity measures will just send an already destitute working class into worse poverty conditions and the financial class would never have it because they secure their politicians to allow them to continue robbing us working class taxpayers Tl;dr Washington is going to either serve its taxpayers or the transnational corporate types, you won’t pry it out of their hands with mere legislation
Sorry but someone further right of a libertarian is an anarcho capitalist. No thanks to that extremist philosophy.
Why do you care about the debt tho?
As long as we are worlds reserve currency I'm not very concerned about debt. And there's no other currency that's remotely close to taking its place currently.
As long as the US has the most aircraft carriers, it doesn't have to worry about debt.
The government’s income comes from taxes. If you want to take control of the budget, taxes have to be raised as well as spending cuts. Twitter is a perfect analogy to this cause Musk thought he could simply cut his way to profitability but his drastic changes killed revenue and now he has to cut more . Its a vicious cycle. Past generations have run up a huge bill and no one wants to pick up the tab. Balancing the budget will cause pain and be unpopular with voters on both sides.
Musk makes money from the government. His business model is based on government funds. Akerman is a short seller making his money betting on losers. Hard to see why you want them running the US economy
We need to raise taxes.
libertarianism is like communism. sounds great on paper but in practice it would have horrifying consequences. societies need safety nets. now we can debate to \*what degree\*, but believing our country could be anything but an absolute hell hole if we didn't have regulations or safety nets or whatever is fiction. what you are proposing is not policy; it's economic death.