Current Events > Impending societal collapse due to too much debt

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-13/the-old-are-eating-the-young

Thanks liberals (for normalizing debt), conservatives (for not caring about the environment), and baby boomers (for spending and wasting and fucking up the economy)
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Everything on this board is so doom and gloom all the fucking time.
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So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.
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KILBOTz posted...

So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.

Stop spending money we don't have (useless wars, bloated and corrupt public programs), start investing the money that we do have (into supercomputing, renewable energy), stop normalizing debt and waving it away as if it isn't dangerous.
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Clad posted...

KILBOTz posted...

So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.

Stop spending money we don't have (useless wars, bloated and corrupt public programs), start investing the money that we do have (into supercomputing, renewable energy), stop normalizing debt and waving it away as if it isn't dangerous.

Agree with this 100%
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Let's just take the debt and push it somewhere else!
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eat the rich @Flexible_Bullet
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Were_Wyrm posted...

Let's just take the debt and push it somewhere else!

If that debt was at least being leveraged to hire efficient private contractors to rebuild and maintain our infrastructure, build new supercomputing systems, a smart electrical grid, better solar coverage, etc, then it'd be more manageable because we'd be seeing massive returns in the economy.

But nope, our government is full of fucking idiots tbqh.
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so we should tax more and spend less, doesn't seem politically infeasible at all
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Lol, whatever, I'm not working with Proudclad to solve problems
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Clad posted...

KILBOTz posted...

So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.

Stop spending money we don't have (useless wars, bloated and corrupt public programs), start investing the money that we do have (into supercomputing, renewable energy), stop normalizing debt and waving it away as if it isn't dangerous.

so you want something politically impossible to happen then
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KILBOTz posted...

so you want something politically impossible to happen then

real talk though, why would it ever be politically feasible not to kick the can down the road?
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Clad posted...

KILBOTz posted...

So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.

Stop spending money we don't have (useless wars, bloated and corrupt public programs), start investing the money that we do have (into supercomputing, renewable energy), stop normalizing debt and waving it away as if it isn't dangerous.

You're capable of formulating such simple solutions to so many complex problems, why aren't you the president yet?
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KILBOTz posted...

Clad posted...

KILBOTz posted...

So what do you propose as the solution? Just glorifying problems doesn't resolve them.

Stop spending money we don't have (useless wars, bloated and corrupt public programs), start investing the money that we do have (into supercomputing, renewable energy), stop normalizing debt and waving it away as if it isn't dangerous.

so you want something politically impossible to happen then

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than 2 meters.
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DifferentialEquation posted...

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than 2 meters.

would you be ok with raising taxes across the board?

because even if we repealed the bush era tax cuts (that subsequently became permanent under Obama) and got healthcare expenditures under control, we would need to hike tax rates by like 25% to close this hole, and that number only goes up the longer we delay raising taxes

that's p much straight from clad's link (well, one of their sources)
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Balrog0 posted...

KILBOTz posted...

so you want something politically impossible to happen then

real talk though, why would it ever be politically feasible not to kick the can down the road?

I guess if stuff collapses due to the actions there would be a couple of generations were it becomes possible. short of that though, no one in politics cares about people 100 years from now.
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I think a better way of saying it is that no one cares about people 100 years from now, whether they're in politics or not
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Just FYI Amazon has rarely turned in a lot of profit Er its stock is super high

But the federal reserve literally raised interest rates this week

Balrog0 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than 2 meters.

would you be ok with raising taxes across the board?

because even if we repealed the bush era tax cuts (that subsequently became permanent under Obama) and got healthcare expenditures under control, we would need to hike tax rates by like 25% to close this hole, and that number only goes up the longer we delay raising taxes

that's p much straight from clad's link (well, one of their sources)

I'd be okay with that if spending was cut down as well and if we saw serious progress towards reinvesting in privatized infrastructure rebuilding, renewables, supercomputing, etc. And if we saw serious progress towards cutting down large chunks of the debt.

I'd rather be taxed more for a few years and reap the rewards for decades to come, for myself and my chilren and their children.
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Daily proudclown topic where he didn't read the article and is trying to troll

Good to see they're back.

Were_Wyrm posted...

Let's just take the debt and push it somewhere else!

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Clad posted...

Balrog0 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than 2 meters.

would you be ok with raising taxes across the board?

because even if we repealed the bush era tax cuts (that subsequently became permanent under Obama) and got healthcare expenditures under control, we would need to hike tax rates by like 25% to close this hole, and that number only goes up the longer we delay raising taxes

that's p much straight from clad's link (well, one of their sources)

I'd be okay with that if spending was cut down as well and if we saw serious progress towards reinvesting in privatized infrastructure rebuilding, renewables, supercomputing, etc. And if we saw serious progress towards cutting down large chunks of the debt.

I'd rather be taxed more for a few years and reap the rewards for decades to come, for myself and my chilren and their children.

Why would you want to privatize infrastructure? Good infrastructure helps improve productivity for everyone, privatized could price out low income people. And it gives the infrastructure owners lots of leverage and they are incentivized towards profit, not necessarily utility.
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KILBOTz posted...

Clad posted...

Balrog0 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than 2 meters.

would you be ok with raising taxes across the board?

because even if we repealed the bush era tax cuts (that subsequently became permanent under Obama) and got healthcare expenditures under control, we would need to hike tax rates by like 25% to close this hole, and that number only goes up the longer we delay raising taxes

that's p much straight from clad's link (well, one of their sources)

I'd be okay with that if spending was cut down as well and if we saw serious progress towards reinvesting in privatized infrastructure rebuilding, renewables, supercomputing, etc. And if we saw serious progress towards cutting down large chunks of the debt.

I'd rather be taxed more for a few years and reap the rewards for decades to come, for myself and my chilren and their children.

Why would you want to privatize infrastructure? Good infrastructure helps improve productivity for everyone, privatized could price out low income people. And it gives the infrastructure owners lots of leverage and they are incentivized towards profit, not necessarily utility.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/4/this-is-why-infrastructure-is-so-expensive
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Assuming you are proudclad's new name, as you are aware this sort of discussion is quite literally what I am a professional in. There are only a few thousand people in the country that know as much as I do about federal acquisition requirements and government contracting as I have experience on both the Government and contractor side and have experience in both procurement and contracts.

Contracting on a cost basis is often a bad approach, though sometimes necessary. Negotiating on a cost basis is great. Talking costs is the best way to know you got a fair price. Early in my career I was buying a guidance system that had never been bought by the US before. The system's first customer was a foreign nation. My company was the prime contractor for both contracts so I was able to view the original procurement information as far as pricing goes and since I was buying it under a government contract they had to submit a CAS certified proposal and they had to open their books for a cost analysis. The USG spent ~70% less per unit than the foreign military did because we were able to look at their actual costs for manufacturing, hours per unit, etc.

But regardless of that, my question to you was why privatize infrastructure? The final paragraph of the article you posted says "Finally, while I wouldn't privatize infrastructure" to start it. I agree that there needs to be changes to acquisition processes, I think some of them the final paragraph suggests are good, they are how prime contractors are currently contracting on behalf of the government, and the government is trying to change but a lot of their procurement decisions and the processes to make those decisions are broken, often due to political reasons.
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KILBOTz posted...

But regardless of that, my question to you was why privatize infrastructure? The final paragraph of the article you posted says "Finally, while I wouldn't privatize infrastructure" to start it. I agree that there needs to be changes to acquisition processes, I think some of them the final paragraph suggests are good, they are how prime contractors are currently contracting on behalf of the government, and the government is trying to change but a lot of their procurement decisions and the processes to make those decisions are broken, often due to political reasons.

What does it mean to privatize infrastructure in this context? For most government services, the arrangement you're talking about WOULD be considered privatization -- i.e., if my municipality started to contract garbage collection services to a third party in a competitive bidding process, that would be called privatization even if that contractor makes all of their money through government granted privilege over a particular domain

But we already have non-government firms as well-established road builders and so on. So I assume that means privatizing the upkeep of particular streets/roads?
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Privatized would mean that instead of the city/state/nation owning infrastructure it would be owned by corporations. So you get to have private companies getting their imminent domain on without necessarily he same level of public interest since they serve their customers and shareholders, not the public.
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KILBOTz posted...

Privatized would mean that instead of the city/state/nation owning infrastructure it would be owned by corporations. So you get to have private companies getting their imminent domain on without necessarily he same level of public interest since they serve their customers and shareholders, not the public.

that's already true in a lot of places, though, including where I live (specifically for infrastructure, too, assuming you consider electric grids and oil pipelines and the like infrastructure and not just roads/streets)

but idk this isnt my area of expertise
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