I've always assumed it is that the trends are damn scary and people don't want to think about them. Most people struggle with financial concepts like (earning >= spending -> good outcomes) and I assume at the root it is some combination of emotional responses that just don't want to tackle the uncertainty of the future.
If you look far enough out, the future is scary. If nothing else eventually we get hit by a meteor. So people generally don't look forward more than a week or few - because it is unpleasant and seems a little pointless. They live with whatever seems like a good idea right now. I just wish they'd let people who are a bit more math-oriented take on budgeting decisions. We're going to be eating consequences that we didn't have to because the US public can't sit down and agree that solvency is more important than whatever distraction came up this electoral cycle.
Home economics and nation-state level economics are entirely, qualitatively different, not just different scales of the same thing, and people who think they're clever by comparing the two are insufferable. Global superpower economies are even more so.
A government collecting more tax revenue than they spend is a sign things are going terribly wrong. Best case scenario it means they were temporarily, inadvertently overtaxing everyone. The government "printing money", and thus creating some level of inflation, is a good thing. Deflationary economies are failing economies.
By far the biggest difference is that to you, money and debt are real. If you don't have enough money, you can't pay for the things you need. If you have too much debt and can't pay, people will show up and commit violence against you. At the sovereign nation-state level ("sovereign" excludes countries that gave up control over their money supply to disastrous effect, like Greece), money and debt are far less concrete. Debt represents "buy-in" on your monetary system: If people and nations are owed money from a country, they have a vested interest in that nation's continued economic prosperity. Money is an infinite resource to a sovereign nation: it can simply print more. Via taxation, they effectively destroy money, since Infinity + 1 still equals Infinity. Thus, money from a nation-state's perspective isn't about balancing the books, it's about controlling the flow.
In point of fact the US public has literally no control over budgetary policy so perhaps pointing the finger at the culprits instead of the useful idiots that put them there would be worthwhile.
It be not so! The US public has been surreptitiously cheering the madness on. I'm sure they'd agree with fiscal conservatism in principle - but ask them to support tax hikes? No way to win an election. Ask them to support budget cuts? Literally nothing on the table.
I've been arguing the fiscal responsibility side on HN for a long time. There is nearly no government program where a strident call for fiscal conservatism won't get a comment downvoted. It is a needle-threading exercise to make any points in favour of not spending money; it takes a lot of care, practice and timing to argue without kicking one of several hornet nests. And that in on HN where the crowds are more reasonable and logically minded.
the culprits instead of the useful idiots
The useful idiots are the culprits. Being an idiot doesn't absolve someone of responsibility.
If you don't have sources, the sensible target is 0. Projects should be funded on an as-makes-sense basis and paid back. Or if you have some reason to pick a different target then sure, do that.
The issue at the moment is that the ratio is trending upwards until something breaks. And debts are hitting levels where not only is it reasonable to expect breakages, but it is also mad to expect that the debt can be repaid. If people keep going the way they are, can you even imagine a realistic scenario where it ends well? People are relying on a McConnell-Schumer-Trump-Biden-No Speaker-in-the-House controlled system to take a situation where everyone is acting unreasonably and suddenly start behaving with fiscal prudence. That is unlikely. It is more likely that catastrophic consequences will happen first, then courses will be changed.
I don't think there are even questions of rhetoric at this point, it looks to me like all the decisions have been locked in. I mean, they may as well bump up the budget for science at this point, why not. Great thing to spend money on. But where are the resources supposed to come from? The system is already in crisis and gridlock.
I would say go ahead and kick the hornets nest. The people who are here to spend other people's money must justify their existence, not the other way around.
Without getting too inflammatory, if they were as knowledge seeking as they claim to be, they would not be fervent and unwavering about their ideas. Most of them are toothless insults anyway.
Neither of the two available political parties routinely make both tax hikes and budget cuts staples of their platform. So explain again how the general populace is somehow responsible?
Comments
I've always assumed it is that the trends are damn scary and people don't want to think about them. Most people struggle with financial concepts like (earning >= spending -> good outcomes) and I assume at the root it is some combination of emotional responses that just don't want to tackle the uncertainty of the future.
If you look far enough out, the future is scary. If nothing else eventually we get hit by a meteor. So people generally don't look forward more than a week or few - because it is unpleasant and seems a little pointless. They live with whatever seems like a good idea right now. I just wish they'd let people who are a bit more math-oriented take on budgeting decisions. We're going to be eating consequences that we didn't have to because the US public can't sit down and agree that solvency is more important than whatever distraction came up this electoral cycle.
Home economics and nation-state level economics are entirely, qualitatively different, not just different scales of the same thing, and people who think they're clever by comparing the two are insufferable. Global superpower economies are even more so.
A government collecting more tax revenue than they spend is a sign things are going terribly wrong. Best case scenario it means they were temporarily, inadvertently overtaxing everyone. The government "printing money", and thus creating some level of inflation, is a good thing. Deflationary economies are failing economies.
By far the biggest difference is that to you, money and debt are real. If you don't have enough money, you can't pay for the things you need. If you have too much debt and can't pay, people will show up and commit violence against you. At the sovereign nation-state level ("sovereign" excludes countries that gave up control over their money supply to disastrous effect, like Greece), money and debt are far less concrete. Debt represents "buy-in" on your monetary system: If people and nations are owed money from a country, they have a vested interest in that nation's continued economic prosperity. Money is an infinite resource to a sovereign nation: it can simply print more. Via taxation, they effectively destroy money, since Infinity + 1 still equals Infinity. Thus, money from a nation-state's perspective isn't about balancing the books, it's about controlling the flow.
In point of fact the US public has literally no control over budgetary policy so perhaps pointing the finger at the culprits instead of the useful idiots that put them there would be worthwhile.
It be not so! The US public has been surreptitiously cheering the madness on. I'm sure they'd agree with fiscal conservatism in principle - but ask them to support tax hikes? No way to win an election. Ask them to support budget cuts? Literally nothing on the table.
I've been arguing the fiscal responsibility side on HN for a long time. There is nearly no government program where a strident call for fiscal conservatism won't get a comment downvoted. It is a needle-threading exercise to make any points in favour of not spending money; it takes a lot of care, practice and timing to argue without kicking one of several hornet nests. And that in on HN where the crowds are more reasonable and logically minded.
The useful idiots are the culprits. Being an idiot doesn't absolve someone of responsibility.
Let's set the rhetoric aside. What debt to gdp ratio would be reasonable? Do you have any sources to support said ratio?
If you don't have sources, the sensible target is 0. Projects should be funded on an as-makes-sense basis and paid back. Or if you have some reason to pick a different target then sure, do that.
The issue at the moment is that the ratio is trending upwards until something breaks. And debts are hitting levels where not only is it reasonable to expect breakages, but it is also mad to expect that the debt can be repaid. If people keep going the way they are, can you even imagine a realistic scenario where it ends well? People are relying on a McConnell-Schumer-Trump-Biden-No Speaker-in-the-House controlled system to take a situation where everyone is acting unreasonably and suddenly start behaving with fiscal prudence. That is unlikely. It is more likely that catastrophic consequences will happen first, then courses will be changed.
I don't think there are even questions of rhetoric at this point, it looks to me like all the decisions have been locked in. I mean, they may as well bump up the budget for science at this point, why not. Great thing to spend money on. But where are the resources supposed to come from? The system is already in crisis and gridlock.
I would say go ahead and kick the hornets nest. The people who are here to spend other people's money must justify their existence, not the other way around.
Without getting too inflammatory, if they were as knowledge seeking as they claim to be, they would not be fervent and unwavering about their ideas. Most of them are toothless insults anyway.
Neither of the two available political parties routinely make both tax hikes and budget cuts staples of their platform. So explain again how the general populace is somehow responsible?