Potus ???

[GarethM]

13 minutes ago, Steven P said:

The debt ceiling has worked for about 100 years... nothing wrong with that, the check is there to limit how much they can borrow without further scrutiny - nothing wrong with that. Remove it and their national debt can spiral further without that extra scrutiny. It is agreed and raised annually anyway.. but go beyond that you have to go back cap in hand - giving some restraint to all presidents. 

Just have a look at the actual levels, highest in human history. The level of just paying the interest is mind boggling, that's why the ceiling has to keep going upwards.

 

It was high during Donald, mostly COVID but then went absolutely mental under Joe.

[GarethM]

If you get bored have a look at the IRS tax system, even state level taxation such as new York makes our relatively complex system look like back of a fag packet Vs their IKEA pictogram.

[Steven P]

I am kind of glad of our tax system...  employee so someone else worries about it all... but the ones who do worry about don't need to be masters in astrophysics! 

 

 

Debt ceiling - never been a fan of borrowing now in the hope that my Children and their children pay it all back - except in exceptional circumstances - which through history were generally big wars and defending ourselves. On the flip side, UK debt was nicely falling till the last government when it was steadily climbing and that excludes Covid - never sure if it is left / right wing policies as much as a "bribe the people to stay in power longer" policy. Generally think it is a good thing - this is all you can spend type of thing and not just keep lumping todays problems in children / grand children / great grand children to pay back, they will have their own problems.

 

However my favourite ex-president has bigly plans including buying Greenland (?!), Musk and the other tech billionaires who funded his campaign to 100's of millions are also going to want their $$+ back (and it was Musk who started calling for the debt ceiling to be scrapped... wonder why....), perhaps having some scrutiny is a good thing

[GarethM]

Before you start going on about Greenland, might be worth looking at both the population that's a dependency of Denmark and the money America spends on it's base there.

 

Whilst it might sound a daft idea, financially it's not as dumb as you think on the face of it.

[Steven P]

Greenland wasn't a comment on the politics of it - more that Trump has some big spending plans that would take generations to pay back without some sort of checks.

[GarethM]

7 minutes ago, Steven P said:

Greenland wasn't a comment on the politics of it - more that Trump has some big spending plans that would take generations to pay back without some sort of checks.

For example?

 

You going to say the materials for the wall, which the biden government is selling off for pennies on the dollar ?.

Edited December 27, 2024 by GarethM

[Steven P]

No not the wall... that idea isn't figuring too much these days.. every few days though there is a new headline that makes me think the US taxpayer will be suffering to pay for it. Just reading back at what we were saying earlier - think we were both saying that there needs to be a limit to the cheque book, spend spend spend isn't a great idea if the money isn't coming in in the first place.

 

 

Can talk about whether buying Greenland is a good idea tomorrow maybe (later, have a run up the West Highland Way first thing) - though that might turn into thoughts about NATO membership too and how far the US wants a buffer zone of protection... or at least how much it is willing to pay for a buffer zone.

[GarethM]

21 minutes ago, Steven P said:

Can talk about whether buying Greenland is a good idea tomorrow maybe (later, have a run up the West Highland Way first thing) - though that might turn into thoughts about NATO membership too and how far the US wants a buffer zone of protection... or at least how much it is willing to pay for a buffer zone.

Greenland is a NATO member.

[peds]

I try my hardest to stay out of this thread, but really... this photo is just too good to not share.

 

 

There's an obvious Xzibit "yo dawg" meme about dumpster fires for anyone who cares to imagine it too, out there on the Internet. 

[Mick Dempsey]

The Greenland thing is a funny old story that pops up from time to time.

I just checked, there are 57k people living there.

I wonder if they had a referendum with the option to become American citizens instantly what the result would be?