It would be the first addiction in human history that actually made the people healthier. Perhaps a nationwide mania for brushing and flossing will follow, God forbid!
(I assume you considered the word “dependency”, but chose the weightier “addiction” because it spatters better when flung.)
I agree. Is there a better alternative that is realistic?
If your problem is one of principal - that the government should have a smaller role then a stand against the ACA even if it costs less is understandable. If your issue is purely cost, then the only way you can oppose the ACA is if you think the long term costs are greater than the current situation or that the estimated savings are not realizable. Is that about right?
Principle and yes.
This principle, is it something metaphysical, like the Holy Trinity? If it is founded on pragmatic and practical fact, what are these facts? Its one of those things I keep hearing but no one seems to explain, as if somehow it were a written Truth, or so widely known and agreed upon that no explanation is needed.
To oversimplify, why should I care how big government is so long as it is the servant and the people are the master? If the power of government is spread out evenly among the people, that’s about as big as government can get, isn’t it? Should the power of government be made smaller so that it can effectively be more concentrated, or dispersed in such a way as to thwart power hungry elites?
Don’t you at least have to define Big Government before you begin detailing its qualities?
So you’re a swing voter?
Or do you actually tend to vote almost exclusively for one party if and when you vote?
I think someone quoted the saying that a democracy will only last until the people realize that they can vote themselves goodies.
I don’t vote for evil. Whether lesser or greater.
I’ve been ignoring this thread for a while but decided to check in and now I see why you were making such an issue of the price-yield thing in the S&P thread. For arguments sake, let’s assume that the auctions are in fact based on the rate and not the price. Do you see now why it doesn’t make an iota’s worth of difference?
Since the Treasury will sell all of the bonds at the highest competitive yield and therefore the lowest price, that price is going to under par. Since it is an auction, you have no way of knowing beforehand just how much below par it will be and therefore what the total amount produced by the auction will be. The only thing you know for sure is that the auction will sell out but that’s only because that’s how Treasury auctions are structured because of the relationship with the broker-dealer community.
I think I’d need to see a cite to support what you are saying.
You are saying that treasuries are brought to auction with the interest rates already set. Then by bidding on a rate, you are actually just changing the price you pay for a bond. That is not my understanding, that is not what the treasury website says and if you have some clear enunciation of this mechanism for US Treasury auctions, I’d like to see it. AFAICT, Treasury always know how much money they are going to raise, they just don’t know the rate that is going to be paid.
The Treasury’s relationship with Primary brokers pretty simple. Primary brokers must bid at each auction. That ensures market clearing.
Where did I say that the rate is already set? Debt instruments will often have a set coupon, but if we posit that the auctions are based on the rate and not the price, as I’m doing here, then obviously that isn’t going to be an issue - right?
You’ll have various bids come in at various rates. Each bid will specify a certain quantity at that bid amount. Let’s say that there is $100B in face value offered. So maybe you’ll get an offer for $30B at the lowest rate, an offer for $25B and a somewhat higher rate and so on.
The offers will be arranged from lowest rate offered to the highest rate offered with a running total for how much in total is being cleared from the auction at each level.
Once the total amount offered is cleared, that rate is the clearing rate and that is rate that is offered to all of the auction participants. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how it works since the bid to cover ratio is generally around 2 or 3 to 1 - which means that there are at least 2 or 3 bids for every bond on offer.
Then we get what we deserve. But those problems, and those potential failures, are ours. And ours alone.
If you only vote for pure candidates, I guess you don’t do a lot of voting.
This does not sound at all like your original position on how treasury auctions are conducted. But if you have realized your error and just don’t want to admit that you were wrong with then I’m not going to push the point. Its enough that you realize that you were wrong.
I agree. I’m just telling you where these people are coming from. They think they know what you need better than you do, they think they have a monopoly on good ideas. Its an article of faith with some of them.
LOL. You’re missing the point. You were arguing that the rollover of the debt would work. I told you pointblank it wouldn’t and why. That argument still stands because whether the bid is done based on rate or price is irrelevant. If you don’t understand why you can see my explanation in the S&P threadas can everyone else.
Now that it looks like we’re going to default, I’d “love” to get back to the original subject, especially the effects of default…
It will not be good. I’ll stand firm on that prediction, without reservation. Roughly, somewhere between not good at all and zombie calypso Apocalypse. Our future is in limbo, no question about it.
I don’t think you have a point anymore other than trying to figure out how you can avoid admitting error. I told you point blank why you were wrong. Your “explanations” don’t explain anything.
You were making the point that the federal government can’t even refinance the debt it already has if its at the debt limit. This is simply not true. Then you went on to say that you could’t even be sure that you would get enough money from an auction to repay the rolling debt. Once again, simply not true.
You can refinance the rolling debt without any room in the debt limit because you are still under the debt limit at the end of the day. You can be sure that you have enough from auction to refinance because of the way that the auctions work. You have a certain face amount and the bidders bid on the yield.
I think our next interest payment is November 15th. I think we might be able to muddle through to November 1st but our account hits zero come November 1st and we simply cannot replenish enough by the 15th to pay the interest. But the 17th is no longer a drop dead date.
You’re just repeating the same fallacies that I’ve already disproven.
First, you can’t have a redemption and auction the same day. I’m pretty sure the logistics of that would be not be doable, but who knows.
Second, even if that were possible, I’ve already shown that the amount of the auction is not and CANNOT be determined in advance - to which your witty retort is simply, ‘Oh yes it can.’ What seems to be a logical argument, to wit, the last sentence above is, as I’ve already stated, nothing more than your regurgitating your previously deprecated argument.
It was nice of a sitting Congressman to weigh in on this thread:
[QUOTE=Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)]
I wanna get the American people the relief that they need from this out-of-control spending and I’ll do everything that I possibly can to do that. And Obamacare is going to destroy everything that we know as a nation. So we’ve got to focus on doing something to work for the American people.
I’ve already told you today Obamacare is already destroying job creation. It’s already hurting our economy. We’ve just got to put Obamacare on hold.
It’s gonna take us off the edge economically. It’s gonna destroy our economy and it’s going to push us into a total economic collapse of America. And that’s exactly what I mean by, ‘It’s gonna destroy America.’
[/QUOTE]
Of course, not much evidence to back up those claims (despite Wolf Blitzer giving him time to provide some.) And I’m pretty sure that he would just write off any evidence which shows that not coming up with a debt ceiling deal would be a ton worse than ObamaCare could ever be as “lies from the pit of hell,” which is what he said about evolution, the Big Bang and other things he doesn’t like or understand.
This is what Team Republican looks like. This isn’t some fringe guy, he’s a sitting Congressman. And this is what he believes and will influence his vote.