Oh I intend to. I've wanted to take those kinds of classes for a while now, just to be better than Michael Moore.

2012 Budget Roll Call: http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/277

A very, very party-line vote...

seems as though the republicans agreed at the last chance before shutdown. Too bad IMHO -- it could've solved some budget problems

well, solved more budget problems than they did with the agreement for $~32B -- with a shutdown that could have raised to $500B easily.

S&P thinks the outlook for our national credit rating is grim: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/04/us-credit-rating-outlook-lowered-to-negative-by-standard-poors.html

So the next end-of-ze-world vote will be the debt ceiling. If it isn't raised, it will apparently be 9/11 X 1000 and the whole world economy will end and zombies will walk the earth and feast on the poor. Irrational fears aside, do you think congress will be able to agree to raise the debt ceiling? Or will we go into default? If we go into default, will it really be as bad the great depression?

I highly doubt it'll even get that bad. IMHO, I think we could even lower it slightly. I see no reason why it needs to be raised. I don't know of that many companies that can operate by outputting more many than they take in. I think the government actually needs to live by the same rules.

I've probably already post this link in this thread, but here it goes again: http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

I think the reasoning for raising the debt ceiling is that it is easier for congress to change the acceleration of our debt than change its velocity directly. Raising the debt ceiling would allow for more time for such smaller changes to accumulate without defaulting.

I don't agree with this necessarily, I'm just explaining the reasoning behind it.

Except that defaulting is really really bad for just about everyone. It wouldn't be the Armageddon I've jokingly described, but it would drag the global economy into complete depression.

Quite possibly. That would be an interesting result to say the least. But then again, the question is, why are we in this mess in the first place...

Anyway, should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Oh definitely. Remember, you're talking to someone who longingly awaits the end of the world. I'm excited!

Yeah. I'm one of those people that wants to sit on my front porch watching. I feel so evil sometimes...

Why sit on your front porch when you can buy up used cold war era bunkers and sit in them and watch?


[edit]
Being morbidly obese sucks, but screw exercising, we sure love them twinkies. Oh woops, was that link a public opinion poll about our budget problems? Our national attitudes towards the two problems are so similar, sometimes I forget there's a difference.


In other news, nobody likes Obama's budget plan - Democrats or Republicans

Just hit the debt ceiling. Epic suck, but it was to be expected at this point.

So wait, when do the unemployment checks stop going out and all public funding and programs unilaterally shut-down? And how long do we have before we go into default?

We have something like 3 months where we can take money out of government pensions and things like that before we have to decide between paying for medicare/medicaid/defense or default on our loans, or raise the ceiling.

So without pensions, does that mean retired government workers no longer have any income/current government workers have no retirement?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/16/2219825/us-government-hits-debt-ceiling.html


^- explanation