Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years • Hacker News Board

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#71

Post by pachydermic » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:48 AM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #5

Even with all the money being printed by Fed (>80 billion usd per month!) there is not enough money for the biggest military+police government on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

Fascinating stuff.

Without going into the details... you know that the Federal Reserve doesn't pay the bills, right? The Treasury does. And when the Treasury pays the bills, it doesn't really have much to do with the Fed buying bonds on the open market. The Treasury pays bills based on interest on national debt, stuff like social security and spending approved by congress. For some reason, congress implemented laws which mean that they have to give permission to the Treasury to pay the bills that congress itself voted into the budget.

My point is that this whole debacle doesn't really have to do much with the Fed, and the Treasury is just following the orders of congress.

*Edit: Ah, I see from stalking your profile that you are not American. Well I can see why you'd be confused - shit's confusing. I don't think even most US citizens understand how it works.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#72

Post by 001sky » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:48 AM UTC

pkfrank wrote: post #46

>The bigger issue, he [Vanguard Group Chief Economist Joseph Davis] said, is how much the turmoil raises the “Uncertainty Tax” on the U.S. economy. Policy uncertainty, Davis argues, is already keeping U.S. economic growth down around 2%, when it could be 3% a year. This is what captures my frustration as well. It's infuriating that a faction of Tea Partiers is causing such instability. Having campaigned on a promise…

It's infuriating that a faction of Tea Partiers is causing such instability

Why is growth not considered a form of instability? Just curious, last time I looked risk and volatility were agnostic to direction.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#73

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:48 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#74

Post by sp332 » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:48 AM UTC

peterwayland wrote: post #9

In an office environment. If employees don't work well together they get fired. Why is there no accountability ?

You can change who's in office, but it's basically impossible at this point to change the offices themselves. Committees and subcommittees, lobbies, corporations, military interests and other support systems are so entrenched that it literally doesn't matter who you put in power, the same problems will exist.

Anyway, Congress isn't supposed to get along. If everyone agreed all the time we would be able to reduce the system to a single person who made all the decisions. The point to a representative democracy is that the representatives represent different interests. Even the idea of having a vote presupposes conflict.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#75

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:49 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #69

throwaway420 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying for me what opinions I'm allowed to have.

Claiming that taxes are evil or good is hardly HN material. You are entitled to your opinion but please focus on factual matters, not just opinion pieces. I am sure we all have ours.

[deleted]

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#76

Post by twoodfin » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #56

shirro wrote: post #21

Isn't there anything in the US constitution to break deadlocks? In Australia if the government can't get a bill through the senate, they can try again in 3 months and if it still doesn't go through then it can be used a trigger to dismiss the house of reps and the senate and call a new election.

No. There is no monarch or governor general. There are no reserve powers. There is no provision for early general elections. The President is not a Prime Minister, and Congress is not a parliament. Neither is responsible to the other. The House of Representatives and the Senate can each freely block the other indefinitely. The only Constitutional mechanisms available for breaking a deadlock are Congressional election…

which will never happen in the current environment where half the states would be happier destroying the country than seeing the scary black man in office for one more day

OK, I'm not thrilled that this article isn't [dead] already, but regardless: This is not reddit and absurdities like that comment do not contribute to the discussion.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#77

Post by gizmo686 » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

cantrevealname wrote: post #67

gizmo686 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people actually get paid by the federal government. When these people don't get paid, they are much less likely to spend money, hurting non-government businesses. And the parts of the government that are shutting down also won't be consuming from private business either, again hurting business and the economy.

Your making the broken window fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window If we didn't have these unwanted government services (or wanted services provided very poorly or at excessive cost), then the taxpayers would spent their money on something else -- something that is wanted -- and it would generate just as many jobs or economic activity in some other way.

Over a sufficiently long term (and assuming that the government is actually less efficient than the market). In the short term, one of the biggest employer and consumer is shutting down for an undefined period of time. That causes real short term economic hardship.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#78

Post by Andrenid » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:51 AM UTC

gizmo686 wrote: post #14

Slightly off topic, but this shutdown is one of those times where I got a very different perspective simply by reading about it from a non-US based (Al Jazeera) source. It is not that they write anything different than local sources, but the whole situation seems way sillier when I think about how this must look to people outside of the country.

As an outsider, it is definitely seen as "entertaining", while also not really being cared about much. Just another one of those "oh America, you're so silly" moments really.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#79

Post by mehwoot » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:52 AM UTC

hellcow wrote: post #36

nostromo wrote: post #24

We all spend so much time focusing on the Federal Government but I doubt many of us will even notice the "shut down." Compare that with what would happen if your local and state governments shut down: Trash would pile up. Criminals would run free in the streets. Fires wouldn't be put out. Water and electricity would stop. Sewage systems would back up. Schools would close. We're talking about services that are the ver…

If the state and local governments gave sufficient notice, private businesses would snap up the new market opportunities. Everything worthwhile would continue as usual, albeit with less waste.

Yeah I'm sure private policing would work great.

Re: Federal Government Begins First Shutdown In 17 Years

#80

Post by superails » Tue, Oct 01, 2013, 4:53 AM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #32

nostromo wrote: post #24

We all spend so much time focusing on the Federal Government but I doubt many of us will even notice the "shut down." Compare that with what would happen if your local and state governments shut down: Trash would pile up. Criminals would run free in the streets. Fires wouldn't be put out. Water and electricity would stop. Sewage systems would back up. Schools would close. We're talking about services that are the ver…

One facet of the 'shutdown' is that they're not authorized to hand out federal money to states anymore. The states and municipalities are feeling it for every day that this stupid theatre persists.

They don't hand out money everyday to the same people.

And it is not stupid theater. It is our government NOT at work. We may temporarily recover some of our debt. In fact, if they keep this going for an extended period of time, it might actually help- a lot. Our country has become much too dependent on our government, and now that the two political parties can't get along, there may actually be room for another socially moderate, somewhat fiscally-conservative, deficit hawk, constitutionalist, semi-libertarian party with common sense to come along and bring the country together. Unfortunately, it hasn't organized yet (and no, it isn't the Libertarian party- not with its current leaders- and even with better leadership, Libertarians are incapable of getting the debt under control because they won't allow raising taxes to cover for past debt).