Article

2020-04-19 Government

The Government Shows Little Respect For Our Tax Dollar

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Posted by Clem 2020-04-19 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 How confusing. If you spend more money than you take in, then the expenditure above the intake can't be defined as taxes. When Congress authorized this, all the Fed/Treasury did was to 'create' new money that had no tax backing. Later they'll classify it as 'inflation'. In the old days it was known as debasing the currency.

Now if the government takes 10% of your income, that is taxes in one form or another. If the government 'creates' (aka prints a boat load of money without backing) that devalues what you hold by 10% that is referred to as monetary policy.

(do I need to put a /sarc on that?)

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-04-19 07:13|| 2020-04-19 07:13|| Front Page Top

#2 Kind of like "heads I win, tails you lose".

Posted by Clem 2020-04-19 08:07|| 2020-04-19 08:07|| Front Page Top

#3 The only upside (if you could call it that) of the past 20 years of debt expansion is that soon we won't even be able to pretend we are ever planning on paying it back, and we can start cancelling the debts owed to us strategically (if you think this sounds like a bad idea because it would worry investors, I submit that crippling the nation by paying 80% of the national budget into the debt every year would be far worse, and refusing to pay debts owned by investors in specific countries wouldn't hurt the US that badly).

But the whole scheme has been continuous, unsustainable nonsense. At least paying everybody cash I can support. It is our money, after all. It is just that they are also paying hundreds of billions of dollars to so many other, more dubious, sources (and subsidizing unemployment, which is a completely garbage idea).

Posted by Vernal Hatrick 2020-04-19 09:17|| 2020-04-19 09:17|| Front Page Top

#4 ^ I agree. We can selectively give certain treasury bill holders a good and thorough scalping while simultaneously making future treasury bill purchases a difficult to obtain privilege. It will be necessary to stop spending money willy-nilly as Washington does now, but that's actually possible too.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 10:52|| 2020-04-19 10:52|| Front Page Top

#5 Lets please remember that lots of t bills held in third world countries were bought on rapine and slave labor. No need to treat those holders like Thurston Howell IV.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 10:55|| 2020-04-19 10:55|| Front Page Top

#6 Further, telling the rest of the world we are going to proactively shrink the global money supply will get some people's attention.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 10:59|| 2020-04-19 10:59|| Front Page Top

#7 Imagine t bill holders coming forward to ask "what do we have to do to not be on the shit list?"

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 11:00|| 2020-04-19 11:00|| Front Page Top

#8 I can't believe anybody would purchase any government debt, be it here, Europe, Asia, in the first place.

Posted by Clem 2020-04-19 11:00|| 2020-04-19 11:00|| Front Page Top

#9 If you buy an ETF it probably has government debt as a component. Bundling, you know...

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 13:19|| 2020-04-19 13:19|| Front Page Top

#10 IF one were to buy an ETF...

Posted by Clem 2020-04-19 13:22|| 2020-04-19 13:22|| Front Page Top

#11 Good point. That is where the bulk of retail investment $ are today.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 13:33|| 2020-04-19 13:33|| Front Page Top

#12 But it's not the smart money. It's the herd money. But, wait, innt that herd thing sposed to be good?

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-04-19 13:35|| 2020-04-19 13:35|| Front Page Top

#13 ...well.

Posted by Procopius2k 2020-04-19 15:49|| 2020-04-19 15:49|| Front Page Top

23:25 Clem
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22:31 Lex
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21:59 SteveS
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20:49 DarthVader
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20:22 Lex
19:55 USN, Ret.
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19:09 Frank G
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