The Watering Hole

GDP without government spending...

Thanks for all your optimism.

I understand that you want Obama to fail and the country to suffer.

What I don't understand is why.

Isn't that where french fries were invented?   Oh sorry, freedom fries...

charger — May 09, 2010I understand that you want Obama to fail and the country to suffer.

What I don't understand is why.

no, what i want is people to wake up and realize this is the road we are on. changes need to be made to drastically cut the amount of $ we spend. i don't give a rats ass about obama, had i taken an interest in finance years ago i would have said the same thing about bush.

instead of playing stupid games accusing each other of being partisan, steroids in baseball, and who lindsay lohan is screwing maybe we could agree we are killing ourselves at a rapidly increasing rate

Raise taxes by 20% and cut miliary spending in half
that will sort it out ;)

It's all horrible.  It's all going down.  Obama destroys everything.  Whatever happens in Greece, it's Obama's fault.  Republicans could easily save the world, but of course their hands are tied, like they have been for so many recent administrations.  If only we had McCain as president, the state of the union would be strong.

Blah blah fucking blah.

Everyone agrees that debt is a big problem
and needs to be sorted out.

Here's the problem

take Greece - the current government took over oct 2009 in the
middle of a crisis.
9 months after Obama

they inherited a totally fucked up situation that has blown up into
a full scale crisis.

Now in Greece - I am sure there are a chase and hookbender who are
blaming it all on the new guy and convinced  that a return to the previous fuck ups
is the answer to their problem.

That is the crap in the argument,
not that run away debt is bad - of course it is

The crap is that you  advocate running back to the people responsible
for the economic mismanagement that lead to the crisis - within months.

By that argument the solution for Greece is to bring back
their previous fuck up of a  government.


It's like advocating  Dick Fuld to head the board of Enron as the solution to turn a company around.

I didn't say it was all Obama's fault and don't feel that way at all. And the point of me voting republican is to not vote for Obama, it's not at all a return to conservatism for me. Just because I don't agree with everything a liberal does doesn't suggest I'm conservative.

i haven't blamed anybody specifically. its been a problem since the 1980's. i wish you could acknowledge the problem and say "yes, we have too much debt and we need to spend less $" without blabbering about bush and obama.

i don't care who's fault it is. i do care that the current person in charge doesn't see the need to reel back the amount of $ we are spending. it isn't a partisan issue, quit making it one. we are simply spending money we don't have and what is happening across the pacific happened as a result of that same fiscal policy.

fingers — May 10, 2010Raise taxes by 20% and cut miliary spending in half
that will sort it out ;)

or we could cut entitlement programs. or quit pursuing expensive new domestic agendas that will cripple our economy.

Or all of the above in realistic proportions.  

i'll agree.

So, name your cuts.

What do you think should not be funded by our government?

Can I can I.....how about GM and Chrysler for a start.

Man that could be a long damn list. ;)

hmn, i'll take fannie mae/freddie mac for one hundred forty five billion, alex.

i would eliminate increases in funding to welfare, who by the way is getting a larger increase next year than the military, police, and teachers.

i would like a microsope and a needle to go through the 437 billion in "discretionary spending" we used last year as well.

i'm not so naive as to think we couldn't trim up the defense budget as well. the one thing i would put off the table are cuts to military pay.

~2 trillion to medicare, medicaid, and social security... i don't even need to say it.

the point is, are you trying to say we can't/couldn't trim our budget drastically to close the deficit? i don't understand why the government refuses to "balance it's checkbook" figuratively

No, I'm asking what cuts you would make.

Re: welfare... that's making the rounds on a lot of conservative sites, but I call BS on it.  Of course welfare spending goes up when more people are out of work--that's how the system works.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562449457235503.html

I don't know enough about the discretionary spending stuff to speak about it.

But RE: medicare, medicaid, and social security, you're going to be hard-pressed to find even 20% of the country that would accept even minor cuts to those programs.  You think it's as easy as just lopping off some of that money... you would never get elected espousing those ideas.

charger — May 12, 2010No, I'm asking what cuts you would make.

Re: welfare... that's making the rounds on a lot of conservative sites, but I call BS on it.  Of course welfare spending goes up when more people are out of work--that's how the system works.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562449457235503.html

I don't know enough about the discretionary spending stuff to speak about it.

But RE: medicare, medicaid, and social security, you're going to be hard-pressed to find even 20% of the country that would accept even minor cuts to those programs.  You think it's as easy as just lopping off some of that money... you would never get elected espousing those ideas.

it's a cost of living adjustment per se, the same way you get a bonus to keep up with inflation supposedly. most of the nation isn't getting any type of bonus, but welfare is giving one (1.9% if i remember correctly). meanwhile obama has said he doesn't believe the military should receive a 1.6% cost of living raise. i can't make this shit up. garbage men in new york striking over the 120k salaries, postmen making 80k/year, and an active duty sergeant who will be deployed on average 1/3 of the time in uniform making 52k/year in allowances, benefits, and salary. who should be pulled back in pay? thats right the army sergeant. lets quit paying those guys and maybe the nasty war will stop...

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/pentagon-military-pay-obama/2010/05/09/id/358485

I won't read links that start with "newsmax".  Sorry, that's just not credible news.

The military is different from other jobs.  Above and beyond the base pay, you get a bunch of other types of pay that other jobs don't get--housing stipends, cost of living allowances depending on where you live, etc.  And healthcare.  And while it doesn't pay a lot, it is the military, fer chrissakes.  As for the 1.4% pay raise this year, that is not all that surprising, is it?  Overall in the private sector, earnings last year did not go up at all, for the first time on record, I believe.  Inflation is negative.  Cost of living is not actually increasing right now.  So why would there be a large cost of living increase?  You're all for government thrift and not overspending, but then, in a period of negative inflation, you think government should pay more to its workers?  Most states and cities seem to have frozen wages.

RE: welfare, I think that's also crap.  If you can find me a cost of living increase article from an actual news source, I'll read it, but when I searched for it on Google, I found nothing after three pages.
Here are some choice tidbits:
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/40516517.html?elr=KArksD:aDyaEP:kD:aUt:aDyaEP:kD:aUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
Here's another one that illustrates just how fucked someone on welfare is...
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/somerville/articles/2010/03/19/the_welfare_cliff/

The numbers in the article include all incentives such as allowances , healthcare, and everything. My base is only 35k; but with the allowances goes up to mid fifties. A newly enlisted man barely makes minimum wage in base salary

chase — May 12, 2010The numbers in the article include all incentives such as allowances , healthcare, and everything. My base is only 35k; but with the allowances goes up to mid fifties. A newly enlisted man barely makes minimum wage in base salary

Right, base salary is not everything.  And if you were stationed in New York City, you'd make more in the cost of living allowance.  Mid fifties--is that bad for a starting salary?  I honestly don't know.  But I don't think most people join the military to get rich.  Do the military for a few years, then you can go become a mercenary and make an outrageous salary, securing a warlord in Iraq.  Or use it to get your education... I work with quite a few people in tech who got their training in the military.  

I just heard a tirade from a friend who claims that military personnel are way over paid.  Not necessarily in terms of "salary," but after considering all of the other benefits.  As far as he's concerned, if we had to go to war, then many people would be willing simply to defend the country.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if I share his optimism there and think that the military had to offer those benny's (like $30,000 for college) just to get new meat to join up during so-called "Peace" times.

the military is operation on an all volunteer basis fighting a 2 front war of sorts. personally, i could make just as much money in the private sector using my degree and not have to worry about incoming artillery shells. i'm not advocating NBA salaries, but definetly ones that are comperable to what a person would make in the private sector at a middle of the road job.

here's the pay charts, you can check yourself. not very impressive, and way below most other public service jobs

http://www.dfas.mil/army2.html

CraigBert — May 12, 2010I just heard a tirade from a friend who claims that military personnel are way over paid.  Not necessarily in terms of "salary," but after considering all of the other benefits.  As far as he's concerned, if we had to go to war, then many people would be willing simply to defend the country.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if I share his optimism there and think that the military had to offer those benny's (like $30,000 for college) just to get new meat to join up during so-called "Peace" times.

no offense but your friend is a meathead. did he consider the majority of people in the armed forces have a family that depends solely on their income to support themselves? most enlisted men from e1-e5 have to get food stamps to support their families. not many people want glory, fame and recognition; simply a good salary for hard dangerous work.

Armed forces are a government job creation scheme.

You could dump 30% without a problem.

funny thing to hear the british calling american military a "job scheme"

How could anyone consider not giving our military a raise is beyond me. Food stamps, holy shit. That's a disgrace. No military personel should have to be in that financial shape, especially in today's world.

Well free market capitalism sets the level sof wages and unless there's a  shortgage of people signing up to the military due to the wages then no need to raise it.

Having  more than 3m seems like wages aren't an issue

chase — May 12, 2010[quote author=CraigBert link=1273380853/0#22 date=1273699883]I just heard a tirade from a friend who claims that military personnel are way over paid.  Not necessarily in terms of "salary," but after considering all of the other benefits.  As far as he's concerned, if we had to go to war, then many people would be willing simply to defend the country.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if I share his optimism there and think that the military had to offer those benny's (like $30,000 for college) just to get new meat to join up during so-called "Peace" times.

no offense but your friend is a meathead. did he consider the majority of people in the armed forces have a family that depends solely on their income to support themselves? most enlisted men from e1-e5 have to get food stamps to support their families. not many people want glory, fame and recognition; simply a good salary for hard dangerous work.

How is that different from other jobs?  Why can the other person in the family not work if the spouse is in the military?  

Hookbender — May 13, 2010How could anyone consider not giving our military a raise is beyond me. Food stamps, holy shit. That's a disgrace. No military personel should have to be in that financial shape, especially in today's world.

Umm, they gave the military a cost of living increase this year.  Sure, it's small compared to other years, but given that the cost of living actually WENT DOWN in most of the country, and wages in the private sector were flat for the first time ever, it seems generous.  I'm not sure what the issue is.

If you want to argue that military folks are underpaid, yes, you are correct.  So are millions of other people.  But there are a lot of benefits that go along with the military, and it is a job that you can get at 18 without a college degree.  If you are college-educated, you can certainly make more money than you can in the military.  But if you are poor and undereducated, the military is a fast track to educational opportunity and a job for a few years.

Really, the low pay grade (e5 and under) military spots are not designed to support a family.  They are designed for single men.   Could it be that the military doesn't tell these men how little they will make?  Could it be that there is no support for childcare services?  What is the missing piece?

And on top of that, what I don't understand is why those families don't have wives that work.  My wife works, and every wife I know works, and they all have kids.  That's just how it is nowadays.  Why is it that military wives can't work?  This is a mystery to me for which I don't think there is any answer.

Hmm...

http://militarypay.defense.gov/mpcalcs/Calculators/RMC.aspx

Put in 1 year, Nashville, TN, 1% (state) tax rate, 3 person family, grade E-2, and got 42k a year.  I might be nuts, but that doesn't seem all that low to me for one of the lowest enlisted ranks.  Same thing in my area, Santa Clara, CA, with a 5% state tax rate, gives a $53k pay rate.  That's not bad at all.  Again, this is for a very low rank, I'm not sure what rank most farily educated people go in at, but I can't see requiring food stamps on 53k a year.  That's not a lot of money, but it's not what I would call poor either--definitely more than most teachers and other low-ranking public servants are making.

I won't even start on officer's pay.  Let's just say it's pretty nice, according to that calculator.

This is good short article on current conditions

http://m.philly.com/phillycom/pm_21409/contentdetail.htm;jsessionid=5CFF47AF649AB71C50CF50377875DE30?contentguid=Iz04Mc9j

The mil gets quite a bit of the pie and they could give more of it to the troops or even get y'all properly equipped.  We pay through the nose for everything mil related and a group people profit greatly while the workers, especially entry level workers, just get by... sound familiar/microcosmic?

What's the stigma regarding food stamps?  Purchasing food is important, especially to people who make little money and choose to have large families.  Is it a "freedom to choose to buy food from places which don't accept them" thing or is it a "people look down on low wage earners" thing or something else altogether?

Food stamps is obviously an artifact from military history .
It is a way of paying your forces so you can be guaranteed they eat enough to be still be capable of fighting.

Give them cash monthly and they blow it on hookers and beers on the first weekend maybe.

Well the military is saying - you can still feed yourself as we gave you tokens.

So the whole thing is misrepresentation by Chase.


And he would be the first to argue for it as a wannabe Julius Caesar.

an E2 base pay with less than 2 years is 1622/month or roughly 19 thousand a year. not sure what calculator you are using. if you aren't married you get no BAH or BAS or separation pay. 19k a year isn't much for a young kid sticking his neck out in a foreign land.

but i give up, the point i was making is that welfare recipients are getting a bigger increase this year than military. i'm not attempting to argue that the military should be paid more (although i think they should). i simply am pointing out the absurdity of the situation in which somebody who doesn't work is rewarded more than those that don't.

charger — May 13, 2010I won't even start on officer's pay.  Let's just say it's pretty nice, according to that calculator.

32k/year base pay. i don't consider that pretty nice.

fingers — May 13, 2010Food stamps is obviously an artifact from military history .
It is a way of paying your forces so you can be guaranteed they eat enough to be still be capable of fighting.

Give them cash monthly and they blow it on hookers and beers on the first weekend maybe.

Well the military is saying - you can still feed yourself as we gave you tokens.

So the whole thing is misrepresentation by Chase.


And he would be the first to argue for it as a wannabe Julius Caesar.

you really have no clue, and need to quit talking

Chase, do you get free housing if you live on base? Or, how does that work?

Hookbender — May 14, 2010Chase, do you get free housing if you live on base? Or, how does that work?

people with dependents can apply to live off base and receive BAH (basic allowance for housing) and BAS (basic allowance for sustenance). for enlisted people the amount of $ is pretty small. officers do get a better allowance for housing, but less for food. either way, the $ amount is designed to provide for the service member only, and adjusted by area to account for cost of living increases.
people without dependents live on base space permitting and pay nothing. they get no allowances, but it should work out the same either way. it defintely isn't a bad system

Well, that would have to be considered a big perk and a substancial amount of money in addition to one's pay. Especially if you live on base and your single. But even if you have a family, pretty substancial perk I'd say. One could probably add about 12 to 15k to the base salary if you get free housing, right. At least???

chase — May 13, 2010an E2 base pay with less than 2 years is 1622/month or roughly 19 thousand a year. not sure what calculator you are using. if you aren't married you get no BAH or BAS or separation pay. 19k a year isn't much for a young kid sticking his neck out in a foreign land.

but i give up, the point i was making is that welfare recipients are getting a bigger increase this year than military. i'm not attempting to argue that the military should be paid more (although i think they should). i simply am pointing out the absurdity of the situation in which somebody who doesn't work is rewarded more than those that don't.

http://militarypay.defense.gov/mpcalcs/Calculators/RMC.aspx

Since it's a calculator from defense.gov, I would assume it is accurate.  No one's talking about base pay, that's a pretty ridiculous measure.  That would be like me telling you how much I would make if I only got paid for 4 hours of my day, or a waitress telling you how much she makes without tips.

>but i give up, the point i was making is that welfare recipients are getting a bigger increase this year than military.

I'd love to see some proof.  Like I said, I didn't see a single mention in my google searches of any welfare cost of living increase.  Where is it?  You don't seem to have proof.  You're just talking.  Meanwhile, we know the military IS getting an increase.

chase — May 13, 2010[quote author=charger link=1273380853/25#33 date=1273773216]I won't even start on officer's pay.  Let's just say it's pretty nice, according to that calculator.

32k/year base pay. i don't consider that pretty nice.

Again with the base pay.  That's a terrible argument and it's only going to turn people off to your point.  Give out the actual figures, please.  Use the defense.gov calculator... that's as close as we will get to the truth in this discussion, unless you think the government is just going to straight out lie on their gov. site.

Your Results
Monthly      Annual
Basic Pay      $1,447.20      $17,366.40
BAS      $323.87      $3,886.44
BAH      $990.00      $11,880.00
Cash Total      $2,761.07      $33,132.84
Tax Advantage      231.86      2,782.31
Regular Military Compensation      2,992.93      35,915.15

That's almost 40,000 for the lowest level enlisted man, his first year in, in Knoxville, Tennessee, where there is no state tax, with a three person family.

Base pay is irrelevant, as it's less than half the total pay.  And if you have a 4-year degree, you go in as an E-4.  Higher pay.  If you go in as an O-1, you start at 51k.  That's not bad at all.

I'm not saying it's great pay, but let's face it.  There is not another job in the country where you can start right out of high school at 18, with no training or experience, and make 36k a year, and get trained to do the job.  It's actually kind of amazing.

Yeah, sure. Until they ship you to Afganastan or Iraq for a little vacation. Then your seperated from your family with limited contact and face the possibility of being blown up or shot at any moment. And, your family knows this and has to live with the danger of your job.

I'd say that pay was fine in peace time while you earn your degree or get trained for a trade. War time, well, it ain't so great in my book.

chase — May 13, 2010[quote author=fingers link=1273380853/25#36 date=1273792402]Food stamps is obviously an artifact from military history .
It is a way of paying your forces so you can be guaranteed they eat enough to be still be capable of fighting.

Give them cash monthly and they blow it on hookers and beers on the first weekend maybe.

Well the military is saying - you can still feed yourself as we gave you tokens.

So the whole thing is misrepresentation by Chase.


And he would be the first to argue for it as a wannabe Julius Caesar.

you really have no clue, and need to quit talking

why - that doesn't stop you talking about economics does it ?

and yes there is a history of paying low ranks this way - issuing rations.

It's fucking hilarious really - after all these debt arguments
the urgency of making cuts and being ruthless.

Then we get an argument that sums up as

Make cuts to everything except that part of government I am about to join
I would prefer a rise for them - but cuts everywhere else.

Yeah right :)

if you think about it government Jobs are a pretty damn good long term plan.


A friend of mine  just retired from the military  after 20 years and they took the last three years of his salary and came up with an average.  Which is $120K , now he gets 50% of the average for the rest of his life (60K) plus full health benefits for his family for the rest of his life.    the beauty is that he is 45 years old and can start a 2nd career doing whatever the hell he wants.

In the private sector, I would personally have to put away 1MM dollars for every 40K I make.  Granted, hopefully you live within  your means, etc.... but for someone to pay me 80K a year for life, I would have to sock away about 2 million dollars just to  yield 80K.     So, when you look at it that way, and with rising health care,  govt jobs are the way to go.


Now look at the state of Oregon which is really fucked up.   its even better.  If you're a state employee in oregon on the old retirement plan,  you can get a guaranteed rate on your retirement payout that is frricken rediculous.  I personally  know people that had a state job for  25 years (granted, a high profile) and left the government at the age of 60 now making 150K a year for life when there outgoing salary was 120K.    Who gets guranteed rates of return????  really fucked up, but the retirement programs are slow to change becuase all of the judges, political officials down to the bean countes that work for the government also get the same bennies....

Its the patients running the Asylum.    Fox guarding the hen house.....  its really sad   unfortunately obama programs in oregon havent helped.  hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into federally granted pojects in oregon to stimulate the economy, but its a failure.   you put 50 million into a new park so you can hire more workers, but these are temporary jobs for 9 months, 12 months etc... thats not helping.  Give the cash back to the small business owners and people that pay the taxes.     I would bet the USA helps bail out greece.  You're already seeing the people like france etc... threatening to  pull out of the of the eurodollar program