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Posts Tagged ‘Debt Crisis’

Latin Americans lecture Obama on Debt

by Phantom Ace ( 4 Comments › )
Filed under Brazil, Economy, Special Report at July 20th, 2011 - 6:47 pm

Talk about a turn of events. I remember a time back in the 80’s and 90’s when Latin American nations would default on their debts. Another tactic they would use is monetizing their debts, sound familiar. Now most Latin countries have their fiscal house in order, The result is economic growth. Buoyed by their new found success, they are now lecturing the Obama Regime about debt and fiscal responsibility.

SAO PAULO, July 20 (Reuters) – After three decades spent battling their own debt crises and getting constantly lectured about them by Uncle Sam, many Latin Americans are watching the countdown to a possible default in Washington with a mix of schadenfraude and fear of what a collapse might mean for them.

For everybody from presidents on down to street vendors, seeing U.S. politicians argue over where to make painful budget cuts has also been a reminder that those days are over in Latin America. For now, at least, as most of the region enjoys an era of economic prosperity and comparatively tiny deficits.

[….]

Brazil, the region’s economic powerhouse, which just a decade ago had to come to Washington to ask the International Monetary Fund for a bailout, is now the United States’ fourth-biggest sovereign creditor — holding about $211 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, according to U.S. data from May.

This is unacceptable. America is becoming the economic laughing stock of the world. When you have former debtors telling us to be responsible, it’s embarrassing.

Gang of 6 unveils 4 Trillion dollar debt compromise

by Phantom Ace ( 9 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, Headlines, Misery Index, Republican Party, unemployment at July 19th, 2011 - 2:39 pm

The bi-partisan gang of 6 has unveiled a compromise on the debt ceiling. Their plain calls for eliminating tax loopholes that will bring in 1 trillion in additional revenue. It calls for 3 Trillion in cuts in programs. AN interesting not, it calls for establishing 3 tax rates as opposed to the 5 we have now. There are no details as of yet, so I’ll wait and see before I cast judgement.

Leaders of a bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators said Tuesday that they’ve reached agreement on a major plan to cut the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the coming decade in what could be a bold entry into a debate on the deficit long bogged-down by bitter partisanship.

[….]

More than $1 trillion of the deficit cuts would come from tax increases reaped as Congress overhauls the loophole-choked U.S. tax code. It would also repeal a long-term health care program established under the last year’s health overhaul and force up to $500 billion in cuts from federal health care programs over the upcoming decade, according to documents provided to senators at a Tuesday morning meeting but not publicly released.

[….]

The tax reform outline would set up three income tax rates: a bottom rate of 8-12 percent; a middle rate of 14-22 percent and top rate of 23-29 percent to replace the current system that has a bottom rate of 10 percent, with five additional rates topping out at 35 percent. It would reduce but not eliminate tax breaks on mortgage interest, higher-cost health plans, charitable deductions, retirement savings and tax credits for families with children.

Details, please!

Essential VDH: The Global spread the wealth mentality

by Phantom Ace ( 119 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, Europe, Progressives, Socialism at July 19th, 2011 - 8:30 am

Whether its riots in Anthens or Obama’s 3rd World style demagoguery, the western world is in the grip of madness. This lunacy is called economic fairness or “spreading the wealth”. Generations of Westerners have been raise on the Progressive concept of equal outcome. This mentality has lead many European nations and the US to our current debt crisis. The public always wants more and is envious of those who have it. Rather than create pro-growth policies, politicians divide the pie. Well now the bill is coming due and too many people refuse to deal with reality.

Whether in the fights over the U.S. debt limit or the rioting in Athens, the common global theme is not poverty in absolute terms, but more often fairness — as in having about the same amount of things as others do.

Here in America, the months-long impasse over the national-debt ceiling continues. President Bush borrowed nearly $5 trillion in eight years. But President Obama easily trumped even that staggering figure with his plan to borrow over $6 trillion in his first four years in office. The architects of his economic policy — Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, and Larry Summers — have all resigned, and are now either back in tenured academia, making lots of money in the much-criticized revolving door, or writing op-eds about why the president’s plan isn’t working — or all three.

Now Obama is demanding higher taxes to prevent a government default — apparently on the logic that everything he did with his previously borrowed $5 trillion was vital to the republic and all elements of it must remain unquestioned.

[…]

Abroad, the Greeks are still demonstrating, and occasionally rioting, over new austerity measures, angry that their northern-European creditors insist on having their $180 billion paid back, with interest.

Read the rest: The Global Fairness Madness

Victor David Hanson nailes it yet again. Many people view the governmnet as the means to get money. They believe that rather than accumulate wealth on their own, the governmnet owes them. This explains the resistance many have to making the hard choices to retsore fiscal sanity, which in turn leads to economic growth.

As Obama said to Joe the plumber, it’s about spreading the wealth. The correct attitude should be to foster wealth creation.

Trump Tells the GOP don’t back down from Obama

by Phantom Ace ( 2 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Economy, George W. Bush, Headlines, Republican Party at July 18th, 2011 - 8:57 pm

Many Conservatives complain that the GOP always backs down. They never stand firm and fight. Donald Trump expresses this frustration and tells them to stop letting Obama push them around.

Trump is right, the GOP should stop being scared of Obama. He’s human and not some demigod the media claims he is.