So......what exactly happens if the US can't raise the debt ceiling?

[TheDooD]

This is why I miss the 90's

 

[The Gnome King]

The Government will just start printing money to avoid defaulting while slashing services since they can't get any tax rises through congress.

It won't be the start of the ends days

It will be if you rely on those services.

For the elderly living off social security, people on disability, etc., I'd say that not being able to buy food or prescription medication will seem quite a lot like the "end days" - social security started in this country because it was found, to public horror, that old people were living in such poverty that they were reduced to eating cat food in order to stay alive.

Cat food.

I, personally, wouldn't mind if my government leaned a bit more towards the European/Canadian tax system, taxed me a bit more, so I know that old Ms. Smith next door is able to eat and buy medication and one day, when I am old and unable to work, the same security blanket will be in place for me.

All this hate towards taxes is very shortsighted; people hate taxes when they have to pay them but they truly want the services taxes provide available when they need them. Most people on this forum from the US are of the age where their parents are paying for their health care needs and/or they are able to work and their employer provides insurance; that's all well and good until the day comes that you need something from the government.

Then your view towards taxation usually changes. I live in freaking Colorado Springs, a city so tax-averse we can't get damn streetlights on some roads here because the populace won't vote to pay for them.

 

[icyfresh]

Anyone read the book called. "The Limit"? Thats what we should do. except without the evil corperation

 

[ajh93]

Easy. We turn Bill Gates upside-down and see what comes loose.

Steve Jobs too!

 

[stefanbertramlee]

The Government will just start printing money to avoid defaulting while slashing services since they can't get any tax rises through congress.

It won't be the start of the ends days

It will be if you rely on those services.

For the elderly living off social security, people on disability, etc., I'd say that not being able to buy food or prescription medication will seem quite a lot like the "end days" - social security started in this country because it was found, to public horror, that old people were living in such poverty that they were reduced to eating cat food in order to stay alive.

Cat food.

I, personally, wouldn't mind if my government leaned a bit more towards the European/Canadian tax system, taxed me a bit more, so I know that old Ms. Smith next door is able to eat and buy medication and one day, when I am old and unable to work, the same security blanket will be in place for me.

All this hate towards taxes is very shortsighted; people hate taxes when they have to pay them but they truly want the services taxes provide available when they need them. Most people on this forum from the US are of the age where their parents are paying for their health care needs and/or they are able to work and their employer provides insurance; that's all well and good until the day comes that you need something from the government.

Then your view towards taxation usually changes. I live in freaking Colorado Springs, a city so tax-averse we can't get damn streetlights on some roads here because the populace won't vote to pay for them.

Oh yes lots of poor people will be totally fucked over but the States won't collaspe or default just become a more shitty place to live with even greater wealth equality.

And then since Obamam can't do shit due to the Republicans tying his hands he will be blamed for the problems and the Republicans will win 2012 and all the aforementioned problems will become worse.

Which is just great.

 

[blindraven]

A better question is what happens if we raise it. The answer is the same thing thats happening right now. Recession and debt.

We need to cut spending and increase the taxpayer base, to reduce the deficit, not raise the amount of deficit we can have.

I agree and this is true, if the govt displays a habit of always raising the ceiling and making no effort to drive down our expenses, the dollar will fall, fewer will want to loan to us if we're always at risk of not paying, and the economy will have some bad fluxes to it.

But, in the near term, any tax changes couldn't be put into effect and collected quick enough in the coming weeks(ignoring the republican 'oaths' not to raise taxes), and the projected expense for August is 164 billion with expenses at 255, and quite simply we cant just cut that much of our budget and expect the nation to function or work well without risking another recession ourselves. So as I may dislike it, very short term, raise the ceiling, soon after, raise taxes, reduces expenses. I'd namely prefer to just end the wars and reduce foreign aid, that alone will do a fair bit, but not all.

The govt needs to remember that the reason it can take loans is to let it spend in times of recession, recovery, or war. It is supposed to let the boom times offset past expenses, not let it feed pet projects of those in power, which leads to the situation we are in now.

 

[spartan231490]

The Government will just start printing money to avoid defaulting while slashing services since they can't get any tax rises through congress.

It won't be the start of the ends days

The government has already printed money to pay debt. by the way, its a bad idea, it causes devaluation of the US dollar which is bad for the economy. If they do that exclusively in order to pay all our bills, our dollar will be virtually worthless in a very short period of time. It will also cause securities to no longer be sold because that's betting on an increase in dollar value, which is guaranteed not to happen, which decreases gov't revenue, which increases the money you print. It's an endless cycle that ends in massive economic failure. Prolly in less than a year.

 

[CODE-D]

We ESPLOOOOOOODE!

no, our debt will just keep going up, like it always does.
although it be funny if all the counters stopped raising because they were maxed out.

 

[Kopikatsu]

The real question is: why did they get into so much debt in the first place?

Simple:

Because Americans want top-notch government services, health care, police, firemen, a strong military, etc... but they want bargain-basement tax rates meaning, they want the government to magically provide these things without having to pay for them.

Well duh. That was the foundation for the entire nation. 'We have to pay 1/20th of the taxes that British citizens do, and don't really have to follow Britain's laws anyway because the distance between the two landmasses makes it difficult to keep the laws up-to-date and most of the Officials aren't hardasses? TYRANNY! WE MUST OVERTHROW THEM FOR THEIR UNREASONABLE DEMANDS.'

If any Politician mentions the words 'raise' and 'taxes' in the same sentence, they aren't getting elected. If they've been elected, they'll be forced to resign. I can't think of any specific examples at the moment, but it's happened far too often. Every Politician is basically made to swear never to even think about raising taxes when getting elected.

Generally when someone brings up the need to raise taxes, a shitload of people will complain that the government simply is spending the money poorly. Which may or may not be true, but eeeeeeh. Money makes the world go 'round.

 

[stefanbertramlee]

Just wondering does anyone have any figures for total amount of $ in circulation worldwide and current yearly deficet. Just to see what damage short term printing would do to the dollars value.

 

[Rpground]

i dont even understand why we use money they way it is,considering you can print AS MUCH AS YOU WANT as the government or just CREATE some threw a computer...

im currently waiting till we just say "you know what? fuck money,fuck your bills coins and rolls! lets just switch over to a digital credit system!" money is ultimately a useless nothing.cause you could be a trillion heir and it wouldnt matter if there was no food water or anything to spend it on now would there. stupid government i swear if i could be the "president" of the WORLD for 3 days i would solve the the job problems,FOOD problems,the GLOBAL WARMING PROBLEM,poverty problems,and the starvation problems!

and thats not pulling shit out of my ass either! i have this crap already written down,and everyone would say "yeah lets do this" cause its all MORE PROFITABLE then what ALL the companies are DOING NOW! DAMMIT! the stupidity of the human race is just...i cant even describe it its so bad! -.-'

 

[Kopikatsu]

Just wondering does anyone have any figures for total amount of $ in circulation worldwide and current yearly deficet. Just to see what damage short term printing would do to the dollars value.

'All told, anyone looking for all of the U.S. dollars in the world in July 2009 could expect to find around $8.3 trillion in existence.'

The US owes over 14.2 trillion.

So...uh...apparently the US owes more money than exists. I imagine that's pretty frickkin' hard to do.

i dont even understand why we use money they way it is,considering you can print AS MUCH AS YOU WANT as the government or just CREATE some threw a computer...

im currently waiting till we just say "you know what? fuck money,fuck your bills coins and rolls! lets just switch over to a digital credit system!" money is ultimately a useless nothing.cause you could be a trillion air and it wouldnt matter if there was no food water or anything to spend it on now would there. stupid government i swear if i could be the "president" of the WORLD for 3 days i would solve the the job problems,FOOD problems,the GLOBAL WARMING PROBLEM,poverty problems,and the starvation problems!

and thats not pulling shit out of my ass either! i have this crap already written down,and everyone would say "yeah lets do this" cause its all MORE PROFITABLE then what ALL the companies are DOING NOW! DAMMIT! the stupidity of the human race is just...i cant even describe it its so bad! -.-'

Currency is supposed to be a representation of the amount of gold the country has. Printing more money without gaining more gold means each bill is worth less.

Anywho, yes, if pretty much anyone was 'Emperor of the World' (I say Emperor, because President has to answer to groups with their own interests in mind which means nothing would get done in years, much less three days) it would be extremely easy to fix most problems. 'HEY, WORLD. WE'RE ALL DOING IT THIS WAY FROM NOW ON.'

We kind of ARE going to digital money, though. What do you think credit cards/debit cards are? Even checks are stand-ins for money, which is stand-in for gold...

 

[open trap]

I like to think that the government actually has everything under control and is just making it look really really bad to screw with us. Then one day they will press the magic button and all the debt will be gone and the world will be fine, and in washington they will be laughing at us for being worried.

Another idea struck me. Maby we keep our military spending so high, so when china and the other nations come to collect the debt, we wont give them their money, and when they try to take it, we will kill them.

Also some times i like to think that magic button in the first paragraph is the one that launches the entire Nuclear Arsenal of the United States of America. Except the rest of the world is not fine...........and dead

 

[aakibar]

To some it up.....we would be boned, it would be Greece times like ten. You can thank Alexander hamilton and the federalists for this idea of debt is good

 

[stefanbertramlee]

Just wondering does anyone have any figures for total amount of $ in circulation worldwide and current yearly deficet. Just to see what damage short term printing would do to the dollars value.

'All told, anyone looking for all of the U.S. dollars in the world in July 2009 could expect to find around $8.3 trillion in existence.'

The US owes over 14.2 trillion.

So...uh...apparently the US owes more money than exists. I imagine that's pretty frickkin' hard to do.

That is quite impressive but the yearly deficet is around $800 billion, no?

So even with no cuts and no tax rises (which isn't going to happen)it would be 10 years before the US currencey would halve in value, still not the end times, unless I'm missing something major which I probally am (i.e sale of securities)

So even in the worst case secnario things arn't that bad.

 

[Gudrests]

To some it up.....we would be boned, it would be Greece times like ten. You can thank Alexander hamilton and the federalists for this idea of debt is good

Thing is...nothing would happen, it's only bad when there is someone to collect from us. Atm....no single country can/will try and force money out of us.

 

[stefanbertramlee]

Another idea struck me. Maby we keep our military spending so high, so when china and the other nations come to collect the debt, we wont give them their money, and when they try to take it, we will kill them.

Slight problem with that would be that no one would ever lend the US money again.

So the States would have to run a totally balanced budget forever.

Edit: same to guds

 

[Uber Evil]

Well, what happens to people when they can't pay their debt?
Probably that, but a lot worse.

Greece nearly defaulted. It got so bad it threatened to crash the economy of pretty much all EU members. Came damn close too. If just small nation like Greece can nearly break the economy of so many nations, god knows what'll happen if the US falls economically. What with nations being so tied together financially, shit would hit the fan.

Honestly, what needs to happen is for us to stop spending so damn much on so many things at once. A good place to start would be to pull troops back. That'd definitely save quite the pretty penny.

Also, it's not really much of a ceiling if you keep fucking raising it.

It's more of a sheet of plywood on an infinitely extending scissor jack.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Just wondering does anyone have any figures for total amount of $ in circulation worldwide and current yearly deficet. Just to see what damage short term printing would do to the dollars value.

'All told, anyone looking for all of the U.S. dollars in the world in July 2009 could expect to find around $8.3 trillion in existence.'

The US owes over 14.2 trillion.

So...uh...apparently the US owes more money than exists. I imagine that's pretty frickkin' hard to do.

That is quite impressive but the yearly deficet is around $800 billion, no?

So even with no cuts and no tax rises (which isn't going to happen)it would be 10 years before the US currencey would halve in value, still not the end times, unless I'm missing something major which I probally am (i.e sale of securities)

So even in the worst case secnario things arn't that bad.

I imagine worst case scenario would be that the US ends up like post WW1 Germany or Zimbabwe.

If I recall correctly, it took over a million Marks just to buy a single loaf of bread. And Zimbabwe's currency became so devalued due to hyperinflation that the material the money was made of was actually worth more than the money was and the government was forced to outlaw their own currency.

Won't that be super fun? Especially because hyperinflation could happen very soon. There was a post on the first page that explains it in much greater detail than I could manage.

 

[open trap]

Another idea struck me. Maby we keep our military spending so high, so when china and the other nations come to collect the debt, we wont give them their money, and when they try to take it, we will kill them.

Slight problem with that would be that no one would ever lend the US money again.

So the States would have to run a totally balanced budget forever.

Yeah these are all impossible scenarios I like to come up with in my head. It is an interesting thought though.