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The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

nytimes.com

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Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#21

Post by credit_guy »

> “Every country has adopted a bankruptcy law,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, “but internationally we don’t have one.” The United States, though, has repeatedly opposed the idea, saying it is unnecessary.

I don't know when the US said it's unnecessary, but it certainly is unfeasible. Normally, when you are not solvent, you go to a bankruptcy court. The deal is that you accept the court's rulings and the creditors accept them too, and if anyone's unhappy, they can argue within the confines of the judiciary system, and the law enforcement is always present to make sure everyone plays nice.

None of these things exist in an international setting. And the most important missing piece is the law enforcement. If we set a bankruptcy court in Hague, let's say, and one of the parties does not respect its rulings, what exactly is the consequence? You can set up such a court, but it would lose its legitimacy in no time as more an more parties will disregard what it says.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#22

Post by umvi »

Right now incentives are misaligned. Politicians have no incentive to be responsible with the money.

Time to implement Warren Buffett's proposal: passing a law that says anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. This would realign incentives - politicians who seek power will need to be fiscally responsible to attain it.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet »

SpaceL10n wrote: post #10
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

Mobs of people storming the Capitol is a violation of norms. Are you sure you are okay?

wizardrobe didn't say it wasn't a violation of norms. Said it wasn't the first violation of norms. (Mind you, I don't know what specific previous violations wizardrobe had it mind...)

It's like, in Rome, Caesar wasn't the first violation of norms. The Gracchi were. Then came Marius and Sulla. Sulla restored the norms and retired - but the precedent of violating the norms had already been set. 19 years later came the first triumvirate. 11 years after that came the civil war.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#24

Post by ethanbond »

serf wrote: post #20
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #2

“In all honesty, it was the Debt Crisis that ended the Roman Republic. There was a Sovereign Debt Crisis during the Roman Republic period resulted in a dictatorship and a debt default. … Therefore, we find that the debt crisis was correlated with a separatist movement – which we are beginning to see worldwide starting in Europe, but will eventually become a contagion in the United States as the conflict between left…

>Timing was pretty bang on if you consider Jan 6th as a turning point of all the things happening around that same time-frame, the Jan 6th events seem to have been some of the least impactful, aside from just being a huge talking point in these type of "world is decaying" conversations the media decided to report on that event in such a way as to draw more outrage than the other stuff -- but looking back the other st…

> now, Jan 6th stuff drew a lot of public outrage -- the sanctity of the office and so on and so fourth -- but real social and physical trauma that has lasted into today? There were more important events during that time-frame in that regard, personal opinion.

You should listen to some Constitutional law folks talk about this stuff. We are crashing headlong into a legitimate constitutional crisis because of January 6 and the resultant cases.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#25

Post by qwytw »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #2

“In all honesty, it was the Debt Crisis that ended the Roman Republic. There was a Sovereign Debt Crisis during the Roman Republic period resulted in a dictatorship and a debt default. … Therefore, we find that the debt crisis was correlated with a separatist movement – which we are beginning to see worldwide starting in Europe, but will eventually become a contagion in the United States as the conflict between left…

Except it was the civil war that caused a debt crisis in Ancient Rome and not the other way around. Repaying debts is somewhat hard when most of your productive assets are destroyed or completely devastated.

Debt forgiveness was a common in such cases because back then government didn't really have any other monetary policy tools or ways to stimulate the economy.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#26

Post by ethanbond »

fjgvcjygjvh wrote: post #18
asfdgionio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

Sure but it was a disorganized mob rather than a real coup attempt. Of course the Pentagon's reluctance to send in the National Guard until there was an > 0% chance that the governor of Virginia would order an "invasion" (with the consent of the city mayor) was pretty concerning but incompetence rather than some conspiracy seems like more likely explanation.

Not true. There was a real coup attempt across several states and a disorganized mob.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#27

Post by fjgvcjygjvh »

ethanbond wrote: post #26
fjgvcjygjvh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but it was a disorganized mob rather than a real coup attempt. Of course the Pentagon's reluctance to send in the National Guard until there was an > 0% chance that the governor of Virginia would order an "invasion" (with the consent of the city mayor) was pretty concerning but incompetence rather than some conspiracy seems like more likely explanation.

Not true. There was a real coup attempt across several states and a disorganized mob.

> There was a real coup attempt across several states

Can you elaborate on that?

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#28

Post by hasty_pudding »

Raptor22 wrote: post #8
wizerdrobe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you consider January 6 protests to be the turning point specifically? It was neither particularly violent nor a first regarding violation of norms. There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. Could just as well consider something like the Tea Party circa 2010 a turning point in separatism. For the modern era, at least.

> It was neither particularly violent Wow. I know perhaps this makes sense from a non-American perspective, but as an American, January 6 was incredibly violent. I think some people forget that this isn't normal .

It's how America became a country. They violated all the norms of England.

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#29

Post by asfdgionio »

vGPU wrote: post #19
asfdgionio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

And yet the BLM “peaceful protests” that burned and looted parts of well over a dozen major cities is considered perfectly acceptable. Both of them were ultimately political protests and yet everyone seems to have forgotten about the actually violent one.

[flagged]

Re: The debt problem is enormous, and the system for fixing it is broken

#30

Post by asfdgionio »

eastbound wrote: post #12
asfdgionio wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no attempt at rallying armed forces in a coup d’etat. What are you talking about? There most certainly was, and a successful one at that. The mob had firearms and pipe bombs and a wide variety of melee weapons. They smashed their way into the building. Rioters intended to hold lawmakers captive and planned to execute the vice president. Several people died. The sitting president led a mob to levy war again…

> several people died Care to list which side the people were killed? And were they armed?

One Union boy died, unfortunately, but we gave better than we got!

The people who were shot were killed to defend the capitol and were given ample warning. Ashley Babbitt, for instance, was trying to break down a door.

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