S&P has downgraded U.S.A credit rating from AAA to AA+

[Shadow-Phoenix]

we should just go to war with china, that way we dont owe them any money

But China makes most of your stuff =/ what's going to happen when you make them mad or wipe them out then who's going to manufacture your stuff?.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

I kind of saw this coming. Hopefully people of the USA start being more interested in their own government, and finally have enough sense to stop supporting the tea party. Honestly, people in their right minds should never support the tea party.

What? People here support the Tea Party? Most people in America hate the fucking Tea Party, along with the other 2 parties. I can't stand that the negotiations in my country have taken so damn long for fucking no reason.

We have raised the debt ceiling over one hundred times without a peep from the senate or congress. It's all about who has leverage in this fucking country, not the actual people living here.

Most polls about the subject (on both democratic and republican news programs) show that Americans are absolutely fed up with the damn government. Myself included. God damn do I hate this bi-partisan system.

I don't have much knowledge about how the system parties works in the US but couldn't you just submit a new party[footnote]Think you need about 1000 people here in sweden to be consider a party[/footnote](or several) so one party always having majority won't work?

Parties crop up all the time, but none actually gain enough of a following. We have a lot of political parties in the U.S, but only the Democrats and Republicans have any influence for whatever reason. The Tea Party is simply a much more extreme and incorrect version of the Republican Party. If we could get a much less polarized party going, that would be phenomenal.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

shit double post

 

[xXAsherahXx]

I didn't actually hear about this downgrading until this thread.

 

[FreakSheet]

I will say this, I visited the US once, and EVERYTHING was cheaper. I assume thats partially because of lower taxes. Still, up here in Canada, everything costs more (ESPECIALLY gas) and we survive, so I'm sure you can survive higher taxes.

Still. US. Get your s*** together. More countries than yourselves ride on you not crashing yourself into the ground. Like o' say, THIS ONE!

and rofl. captcha was "lendin many"

 

[zehydra]

The US's credit rating should've been lowered a while ago. The US hasn't been able to pay its bills for quite a while now, and hadn't shown any sign of caring about the debt at all, until the tea party started gaining steam.

I wouldn't blame the downgrade solely on the tea party. I'd blame it on the democratic and republic parties both for essentially ignoring the issue for over a decade.

 

[HalfTangible]

we should just go to war with china, that way we dont owe them any money

Let's see ...

China has 300,000,000 soldiers.

The entire population of the US is about 300,000,000

This means that basically, if every man, woman and child, including criminals, the mentally unfit, infants, you, me and retirees were to arm themselves and go to war, the soldier ratio would be about 1 to 1.

Besides, look around your house at different items. Find the ones that say, "MADE IN CHINA". Now, remove those items. They kind of have us by the balls. We have no industry. We, as a nation, have lost the ability to build things. The things that we DO build usually fall apart just as fast as the Chinese stuff. Remember, those sweat shops in China that make things that we use every day are owned by the same greedy bastards who outsourced the jobs over there so they wouldn't have to pay as much. If they owned factories here, they'd still have the same mentality: "Make it cheap; who cares if it falls apart in a week?"

I just want to point out that quantity doesn't mean quality. Our military is much better equipped then they are. They may have a billion soldiers but they don't have high-tech equipment like our soldiers. They also don't have an air force nor a navy that can match ours as well. Also, ever heard of The Battle of Mt. Thermoplyae?

Economically we would be screwed. But industries could be built and there should come a time when we shouldn't have to import everything from China.

Oooh, not a good parallel. The Spartans were better equipped and trained, but they still LOST at Thermoplyae, you know.

Anyway, I'm a bit pissed at the TEA Partiers who say "Don't raise taxes, the problem is that we spent more than we took in!" Yes...that's why we want to take in more.

And I'm very pissed a congress and the President in general. Petulant brats, all of them. Republicans especially, but the Democrats are far from blameless.

Or the government could, ya know, spend less. -_- Such a /radical/ idea, i know, not spending money you don't have.

What scares me the most is that all the parties in this argument (as in groups, not necessarily political parties) are tossing the blame at each other for the express purpose of blaming them when everything goes up in flames. WHY NOT STOP THE FLAMES FROM GOING UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Or at least pack a fire extinguisher and make it not quite as slaughteriffic...

 

[Avatar Roku]

we should just go to war with china, that way we dont owe them any money

Let's see ...

China has 300,000,000 soldiers.

The entire population of the US is about 300,000,000

This means that basically, if every man, woman and child, including criminals, the mentally unfit, infants, you, me and retirees were to arm themselves and go to war, the soldier ratio would be about 1 to 1.

Besides, look around your house at different items. Find the ones that say, "MADE IN CHINA". Now, remove those items. They kind of have us by the balls. We have no industry. We, as a nation, have lost the ability to build things. The things that we DO build usually fall apart just as fast as the Chinese stuff. Remember, those sweat shops in China that make things that we use every day are owned by the same greedy bastards who outsourced the jobs over there so they wouldn't have to pay as much. If they owned factories here, they'd still have the same mentality: "Make it cheap; who cares if it falls apart in a week?"

I just want to point out that quantity doesn't mean quality. Our military is much better equipped then they are. They may have a billion soldiers but they don't have high-tech equipment like our soldiers. They also don't have an air force nor a navy that can match ours as well. Also, ever heard of The Battle of Mt. Thermoplyae?

Economically we would be screwed. But industries could be built and there should come a time when we shouldn't have to import everything from China.

Oooh, not a good parallel. The Spartans were better equipped and trained, but they still LOST at Thermoplyae, you know.

Anyway, I'm a bit pissed at the TEA Partiers who say "Don't raise taxes, the problem is that we spent more than we took in!" Yes...that's why we want to take in more.

And I'm very pissed a congress and the President in general. Petulant brats, all of them. Republicans especially, but the Democrats are far from blameless.

Or the government could, ya know, spend less. -_- Such a /radical/ idea, i know, not spending money you don't have.

What scares me the most is that all the parties in this argument (as in groups, not necessarily political parties) are tossing the blame at each other for the express purpose of blaming them when everything goes up in flames. WHY NOT STOP THE FLAMES FROM GOING UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Or at least pack a fire extinguisher and make it not quite as slaughteriffic...

I should, perhaps, mention that cutting spending is also an integral part of whatever plan they SHOULD go with. I'm just saying that doing both is probably the best thing. If you only cut things, you end up having to cut things you NEED, and if you only tax, you put the burden far too much on the individuals.

But I have to be honest, your comment (in relation to mine, I mean) kinda bothers me. Yes, we absolutely should not spend what we do not have. I agree. But why is cutting spending the only way to do that? When you say "don't spend more than we take in", there are two possible ways to do that, both of which I covered above, and the latter of which a surprising number of people seem to ignore.

 

[HalfTangible]

we should just go to war with china, that way we dont owe them any money

Let's see ...

China has 300,000,000 soldiers.

The entire population of the US is about 300,000,000

This means that basically, if every man, woman and child, including criminals, the mentally unfit, infants, you, me and retirees were to arm themselves and go to war, the soldier ratio would be about 1 to 1.

Besides, look around your house at different items. Find the ones that say, "MADE IN CHINA". Now, remove those items. They kind of have us by the balls. We have no industry. We, as a nation, have lost the ability to build things. The things that we DO build usually fall apart just as fast as the Chinese stuff. Remember, those sweat shops in China that make things that we use every day are owned by the same greedy bastards who outsourced the jobs over there so they wouldn't have to pay as much. If they owned factories here, they'd still have the same mentality: "Make it cheap; who cares if it falls apart in a week?"

I just want to point out that quantity doesn't mean quality. Our military is much better equipped then they are. They may have a billion soldiers but they don't have high-tech equipment like our soldiers. They also don't have an air force nor a navy that can match ours as well. Also, ever heard of The Battle of Mt. Thermoplyae?

Economically we would be screwed. But industries could be built and there should come a time when we shouldn't have to import everything from China.

Oooh, not a good parallel. The Spartans were better equipped and trained, but they still LOST at Thermoplyae, you know.

Anyway, I'm a bit pissed at the TEA Partiers who say "Don't raise taxes, the problem is that we spent more than we took in!" Yes...that's why we want to take in more.

And I'm very pissed a congress and the President in general. Petulant brats, all of them. Republicans especially, but the Democrats are far from blameless.

Or the government could, ya know, spend less. -_- Such a /radical/ idea, i know, not spending money you don't have.

What scares me the most is that all the parties in this argument (as in groups, not necessarily political parties) are tossing the blame at each other for the express purpose of blaming them when everything goes up in flames. WHY NOT STOP THE FLAMES FROM GOING UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?! Or at least pack a fire extinguisher and make it not quite as slaughteriffic...

I should, perhaps, mention that cutting spending is also an integral part of whatever plan they SHOULD go with. I'm just saying that doing both is probably the best thing. If you only cut things, you end up having to cut things you NEED, and if you only tax, you put the burden far too much on the individuals.

But I have to be honest, your comment (in relation to mine, I mean) kinda bothers me. Yes, we absolutely should not spend what we do not have. I agree. But why is cutting spending the only way to do that? When you say "don't spend more than we take in", there are two possible ways to do that, both of which I covered above, and the latter of which a surprising number of people seem to ignore.

I'll be perfectly honest here: It's partly due to spite for congress - Clinton may have started this, Bush may have made it worse, and Obama may have been president when the economy REALLY started to tank (or it might've been near the end of Bush's, im having trouble remembering) but the congress is, was, and will be powerful enough to fix it themselves. That's why we have three branches in the first place - So two branches can keep one branch from doing something too stupid. In addition, they are supposed to be most in tune with the american people but seem to be completely out of touch with those people - and more importantly, reality.

I'm also sore over the stimulus and healthcare bills - not so much because of what they were allegedly supposed to do, or even that they didn't do it... but rather that they were so ridiculously long i have to wonder who could've possibly known what was going through...

It's mostly, however, because Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling and I have trouble seeing how that could possibly mean we will LOWER our debt any time soon.

The reason i directed it at your comment was that it seemed to me like you thought we should keep spending the same and increase taxes which, as you said, puts almost all of the burden on the people, and yeah, you're right, a little of both is probably the way to go.

I argue for cuts in spending largely because the guy who signs the bill into law isn't going to let a bill go through if it doesn't have raises in spending/taxes anyway, so that half doesn't really need an advocate.

Thank you for responding reasonably, by the way. It's very refreshing =)

 

[Kopikatsu]

On The Daily Show (read my post before you bawl) recently, I saw a clip of Mitch McConnell said that the most important thing to the Republican party right now was to make sure Obama didn't get re-elected. I'll admit it, I'm pretty liberal, but even compared to what I normally think of Republicans, that just seems absurd. Are they are actively trying to make the country worse under Obama, just so that he gets the blame? That pangs of a desire for power over a desire to do anything good. As you'd expect from a liberal, I would advise repealing the Bush tax cuts. No surprises there. How many of America's top earners are not from America? In 2005, your Personal tax rates were some of the lowest in the world.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110805/GPG0706/110805087/1269/gpg06/Cyber-Saturday-Republican-focus-ousting-Obama

I found this quite amusing, perhaps you will too:

The 'absurd' taxes that the Colonists had to pay were only 1/20th of what British citizens had to pay. The US was almost literally founded on an irrational hatred of taxes. It's never low enough. NEVER. (That being said, I would honestly give up my right to vote if I only had to pay 1/20th of the taxes. And it's not even like the taxes were collected that often/new laws were REALLY enforced because of the distance between the Colonies and the British Empire. The colonists had a really good thing going, but they fucked it up. DAMN YOU, FOREFATHERS.)

 

[acosn]

Hurray! Oh wait, that's a bad thing right? I know you Americans are in a bad debt crisis, but can you give me the laymans version?

At a basic level? The US government is spending record amounts of money while taxes are at record lows. Per capita we've never had taxes this low except before the inception of the modern US government.

Democrats refuse to budge on government spending because too much of it is in essential programs and / or things that they reasonably can't cut (IE: you know, government provided health care, which the majority of the US already wants) and republicans refuse to budge on taxes because its fundamentally their political platform.

We're seeing that bet corporations made a few decades ago that they could own the US come to fruition, and there's basically a kitchen sink worth of problems to take care of.


And the way out? Either go the liberal route (learn your terms before you say anything) and cut taxes and government funding across the board, or take the socialist route and up taxes.

 

[notyouraveragejoe]

Okay...so what? I know its a big deal but I'm not exactly sure why....

On the other hand Singapore is still AAA so yay us!