BTW, if our troops really cared about the great USA... they wouldn't want to get paid. If it's a job for them, then maybe they should quit. Sorry, but I'm not going support people who make bad employment decisions. They should have never joined.

Yeah, I get the feeling it'll be a last min deal go down. It would be nice to see a complete default though.

I always take a step back, I get heated from these discussions too. After all, this whole sad affair is very personal to us all, and we all have a lot at stake.

I do think we need to raise the debt cap in the short term to avoid hurting people who don't deserve to be hurt. Starting the day after, we then need to start chopping the things you mentioned above, and a lot more.

But, who will do this? It's up to the American people to not forget about what happened here and to not let any politician forget it either. Unfortunately, we seem to have short attention spans and memories when it comes to issues like this.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but go to the source and view the correct information. http://www.ssa.gov/dibplan/dqualify.htm You absolute must have paid in enough to get the benefits!

On a call with reporters, a senior administration official told reporters that two types of activities would continue in the event of a government shutdown.

First, operations that have other funding sources such as user fees or appropriations that are not done annually will continue to operate.
Second, any activities ?necessary for the safety of life and protection of property? of the U.S. and its citizens would continue.
This generally means military and law enforcement operations would continue.

Administration officials told National Journal on Wednesday that the following government services could possibly cease in the event of a government shutdown:
Federal Housing Administration's new home loan guarantees may cease. During spring home buying season, this suspension of new issuances could have a gravely adverse effect on recovery of housing market.
Private mortgage lenders across the country could suspend new home loan closings as a result of having no assurance those loans will be guaranteed. Some 30 percent of the market is FHA loans.
Small Business Association approval of applications for business loan guarantees and direct loans to small businesses would likely cease, impacting the engines of our economy, which could slow economic momentum.
Internal Revenue Service's processing of tax refunds for paper-filed returns (approximately 30 percent of total), and performance of tax audits, would be suspended.
Operation of E-Verify activities by DHS would be suspended, which could slow down new hiring.
Patent processing will be suspended.
Non-emergency consular and passport operations may be suspended, though this is still under discussion with the State Department.

These services would stop:

All areas of the National Park Service and National Wildlife Refuge Systems will be closed. Limited access to public lands could adversely affect communities that depend on recreational tourism.
Smithsonian Institution and National Gallery of Art would close to the public (although Kennedy Center will remain open, due to significant private funding sources).
Many Environmental Protection Agency functions, including review of environmental impact statements. Only functions necessary to protect life and property will continue.
E-commerce transactions on U.S. government websites.
Many civilian employees at the Defense Department would be furloughed.
The National Institutes of Health clinical center would not take new patients or initiate new clinical trials. Trials in process would continue.
District of Columbia: Trash collection would be suspended for first three days of funding lapse. Public libraries (except for security), and a variety of District offices that perform non-excepted functions, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, would suspend operations. The Cherry Blossom Parade scheduled for this weekend would not take place.

These critical services would not cease:

Social security checks for seniors, people with disabilities and survivors would still go out (though the Social Security Administration is still finalizing plans).
Medicare payments will continue for a temporary period. They would be cut off in the event of an extended shutdown, but the official said that meant a shutdown that lasted for months. ?I think we?re into a hypothetical beyond a period of time that any shutdown has lasted,? the official said.
Troops would be able to continue to work, though they will not be paid until the government began to function again.
Critical homeland security functions such as border security would continue.

You're ignoring Supplemental Security Income, which doesn't require anything to be paid into the system.

It does have conditions to be met first. But, let's say that 60% of these people are faking, why would we want to hurt the other 40% with legitimate cases, plus the masses of others on SSD who have all actually paid in.

So, while I'm on board for cleaning up the system and specifically targeting that 60%, we can't just let these politicians say "fuck em all."

I say fuck'em all. If you can stand, you can work.

the U.S. government may have to decide which bills to pay. What comes first: Social Security checks? Military spending? Food stamps?
There's not even a choice, says Jerome Powell, a former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Finance.
"Interest will be paid first," he says. "There's really no thought process there, it just has to be that way."
Why pay interest on U.S. government bonds before paying for, say, food stamps?
"If we start defaulting on our debt there are going to be a whole lot more people on food stamps than there are now," Powell says.
That's because government debt is essential to the plumbing of the economy. People and companies treat investments backed by Treasury bills almost like cash — and they expect T-bills to be as reliable as cash.
"Treasury bills are the only financial instrument in the world where anyone can invest in them and believe there is literally no risk of not being paid back," Peterson says.
Mark Peterson is the treasurer of ServiceMaster, a company based in Memphis, Tennessee. They do lawn care, among other things. He relies on investments backed by T-bills to pay his employees.
"In our TruGreen lawn business, the season is summer," he says. "So in the middle of June and July, we're applying a lot more applications of our fertilizers and pesticides on people's lawns. We then bill the customers, and the customers' payments come in later."
No problem— Peterson just taps the company's investments, and pays his employees with that money. When the payments come in, he reinvests it in T-bills
If you don't pay back your creditors, then you're no longer the least-risky investment in the world. People will buy other bonds, that look safer. And it will become more expensive for the government to borrow money.
It turns out that in fiscal crises, interest on bond payments gets VIP treatment again and again.
In New York's financial crisis in the mid-1970s, the city put interest payments on bonds first — even in front of sanitation workers, which upset the sanitation workers union.
"They let the garbage pile up on the streets of New York," says Donald Kummerfield, former budget director of New York City. "The city was ... stinking."
And just a few weeks ago, when Minnesota's state government had its own crisis, the state passed a law that said payments on bonds came before everything else.

although i would love to see a meltdown on 8/3, the pols will agree to a compromise as soon as the dow drops 500 points.

no matter. the bankruptcy of the USA is manifest destiny. The only question is how & when.

Most likely it will be when the baby boomers retire en masse, & the deficit balloons to 3 trillion/year & up. Someone will have to break the bad news to the boomers that they're not going to get everything they think they're entitled to.

All baby boomers should be thrown in jail when they turn 65, not given government checks. The way they bankrupted america is a crime.

they paid in to ss its not welfare. and if they lifted the cap on ssi to over 105k there would be no problem. also keep lowering taxes and then cry about the debt. As fun as it is to cut things on old people and middle class. There isnt enough you can cut to balance the budget. While protecting tax breaks that will never ever effect you except they will ram in harder up your ass while google pays about 4 percent in corporate taxes. Also a cute thing happen for all those people with the taxes make corporations raise their prices mantra. As we know the faa is unfunded now, so the 7 percent tax they collect on all tickets cant be collected. So that should mean its 7 percent cheaper to fly, oh no. The airlines raised their prices 7 percent so you are still paying for it. That kills that whole fair tax theory.

also it all melts down how will you make a living? Im curious.

I made just under $6000 last monday alone trading stocks.

Yeah right. The DJIA dropped more than that last week.

Prisons are a lot more expensive per person than mailing checks.

But it's so very american to see prison as the solution for every problem.

Now, we could always build boomer camps, that might be cheaper.

Might make for good reality tv. "Boomer Camp - now the old f*ckers will pay!".

yes everyone waits

I can wait :pimp

You're clearly not thinking about this and just trolling. This is the effect

Interest rates hiked. They might still be hiked as the credit rating agencies who control the interest rate paid on these loans. Might get pissed and worried and hike them anyway, thanks to the Tea Party.

So your mortgage, car payments and CC interest go up.

Then they won't cut the unemployed benefits, that's a small saving. They will cut people who are in a job that's being paid out of the Government purse. It's far better to fire someone sitting in an expensive office on a bought chair at a desk with a computer and shuffling paper than it is to cut 5% off welfare. The welfare bill is going to go up, the services the Government pay for is going to go down.

Think about it for a moment, police, teachers, road sweepers, fireman, paramedics, road building and repairs, factories turning out arms, Government schemes I did here that Congressmen love to get big funding for projects in their Districts.

What else can be cut? Food subsidies, Airports, controllers, etc. Not sure if they're independently run or not. So choose another one.

Only idiots think it will only hit the poor, it will hit everyone who derives an income from US citizens. Because Depressions have a habit of rolling up the scale. A lot faster than wealth rolls down the scale.

Your income is 100% dependent on what people have over after they paid their bills. Porn will be hit like a Mother Fucker. Do I buy $30 worth of porn or food to feed the kids? Extreme example, but you get the idea.

Out with the poor, the tired, and the weak ...

Sorry mate, but you didn't think it through. Like the OP.

Yes let's stop building all this expensive hardware, give the Marines a decent gun and bullet proof vest and hey ho.

Anyway all that hardware's made in China, Japan and India anyway. :Oh crap

Oh shit!!!! It's made in the good old US of A.

Cutting spending on the hardware is one way of cutting the budget. It illustrates my point so well. It will mean Americans will get laid off, because they're not building stuff, factories close, the factories making the components for the Warships, planes and tanks close. The businesses all the way down to the ones who supply the toilet paper <pun intended> are facing hardship.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/k...taxes-2009.png

Excellent place to cut. But the hardware spending employs US citizens making that stuff. Who will go onto the SS budget, because it's cheaper to keep them unemployed.

The money has to be found and finding it by cutting somewhere and cutting benefits is only going to shave the deficit. The cuts will bite into employment, firstly Government employees then the suppliers they buy from.

The money the Government loans flows INTO the US. It props up the economy. Think of it as being on a life support. Turn off a tap a little bit and the patient has problems. Even money given to the layabout scroungers who have never worked in their life is money in the system, they don't put it under the mattress, they buy stuff with it. At places that employee people who buy stuff, like porn site memberships.

Start laying off workers and the cuts go deeper. But that's where they will be made.

It's shocking watching, listening or reading the clowns who don't understand the situation.

The US economy, like others, exists on debt. Without that debt the US economy would be $10 trillion worse off. Well maybe not that much as a lot of the money is spent overseas.

Quote:

The economy of the United States is the world's largest national economy. Its nominal GDP was estimated to be nearly $14.7 trillion in 2010,

Does that figure ring a bell?

Here's a clue.

So taking out $1 trillion is going to mean $1 trillion less in the US economy. That's 7.1% of the total US economy. The US needs to slow down the lending and reduce the interest payments to achieve a lower debt. Imagine what that's going to do to your wallets. Because this industry is all about disposable income. That's going to hit porn harder than anything. Even Tubes will close, because sales to sites won't be there like they do.

If you have money pornless, buy land. Gold might get hit as well. On the other hand it might not, but you're relying on the standard remaining on gold. And it's not much use for anything buy jewelery. So who knows. Land is a far safer bet. :thumbsup

Stock market. :1orglaugh

In reality there will be no default, the US has to get it's economy ship shape. It will hurt, but not nearly as much as the Depression in the 30s.

Whether or not we default, we are going to have something happen worldwide eventually and it will make 2009 look like a good year.

Just heard on the TV, the markets are spooked. worried the US credit rating might be hiked. That will cost anyone with a loan or debt. And might trickle dow. People might be more reluctant to use a CC. I fucking hope not.

1.00 USD = 0.701173 EUR

1.00 USD = 16.9568 CZK

I agree with you. ALL Government spending in the US seeds local communities in one way or another. Be it Social Security, Health, Pensions or sending men to Mars.

It's just come out in the UK that the cuts by the UK Government will cost every household $2,400 and the UK is not repaying what the US has to.