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US barrels toward a fiscal cliff
MSN Money ^ | 4/18/2012 | Anthony Mirhaydari

Posted on 04/19/2012 1:40:19 PM PDT by Vintage Freeper

For all the well-paid analysts and sophisticated computer systems that dominate trading, Wall Street still can't seem to focus on more than one thing at a time.For now, the focus has returned to the European debt crisis, as the issues that cut down Greece, Portugal and Ireland have hit Spain hard.

But very soon, as Election Day approaches, the attention will turn back to U.S. debt and deficit issues, which, as in Spain, are caused by too much debt and a government trying to avoid its budget-cutting duties. Remember last summer's debt-ceiling debacle and the market meltdown caused partly by the loss of the Treasury's AAA credit rating? Get ready for the sequel. (Snip)

Economic research suggests both higher debt and deep short-term austerity limit economic growth. So we can pick our poison. (Snip)

A decision on all of these issues -- the deficit, the debt ceiling, tax cuts and unemployment benefits -- will need to be made in the context of a fierce, polarized presidential election, the lame-duck congressional session that will follow and an even-more-divided government in 2013. Prediction markets suggest President Barack Obama will win re-election and Republicans will hold the House and retake the Senate. (Snip)

(Excerpt) Read more at money.msn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics/Elections
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Don't like the picture above?

Jim Robinson and FreeRepublic could make it possible to paint a completly different picture.

1 posted on 04/19/2012 1:40:21 PM PDT by Vintage Freeper
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To: Vintage Freeper; Jim Robinson; Jeff Head; Cen-Tejas; sport; MWS; seekthetruth; Liz; ForGod'sSake; ..
Prior to 1964, Ronald Reagan spent most of his life as a New Deal Democrat. Ronald Reagan changed.

Mitt Romney can change too. Who can convince him to change?

Charles Koch, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul for starters.

How?

FreeRepublic's Plan For Taking Our Country Back

2 posted on 04/19/2012 1:42:30 PM PDT by Vintage Freeper (We have it in our power to begin the world over again.)
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To: Vintage Freeper

Couldn’t agree more....however... Romney is this outfit’s (http://www.baincapital.com/) “front man” on their quest for the keys to the US Treasury.

Reagan was his own man.

Romney changes...we’ll all find him out on his a$% freezing on the tundra north of Wasila....courtesy his keepers at Bain.


3 posted on 04/19/2012 1:54:00 PM PDT by mo (If you understand, no explanation is needed. If you don't understand, no explanation is possible.)
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To: Vintage Freeper
So much attention on doing the big things, that we forget this country was built on people doing lots and lots of little things that, combined, made us great. In the context of the Federal budget, we could whittle away at many spending line items, to lower the outgo a bit at a time. Make do with a couple fewer bureaucrats in each agency. Find the deadwood, cut them out. Find the slackers, especially those who brag about how they coast through the work day, and show them the door.

I applaud Obama for thinking how to get people off the unemployment rolls (although I quibble about the details of his plan). We are in a downward spiral because we have fewer and fewer producers, which means the overall gross national income falls because too many people suck the economic life out of the GDI (gross domestic income). Fewer spenders, less demand for goods and services, fewer workers, even fewer spenders, continued dropping demand, and you circle the drain. Put a stopper in the drain, and you will see demand rise, more workers, more spenders, and we're back on a growth path.

Government isn't the engine. The country is the engine -- ALL of the country. And the sooner we get more people paying taxes because more people are employed, the better. The USA used to be the country that works because its citizens were workers. That isn't true today.

Maybe the right thing is to start whittling at the salaries of the people in Congress, including pension benefits. Whittle at the salaries in the White House, too. Tie their earnings and their payouts to results, like stockholders are now doing to CEO pay.

The state leve? There, too.

4 posted on 04/19/2012 1:58:46 PM PDT by asinclair (Everybody works, everybody pays.)
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To: Vintage Freeper
So much attention on doing the big things, that we forget this country was built on people doing lots and lots of little things that, combined, made us great. In the context of the Federal budget, we could whittle away at many spending line items, to lower the outgo a bit at a time. Make do with a couple fewer bureaucrats in each agency. Find the deadwood, cut them out. Find the slackers, especially those who brag about how they coast through the work day, and show them the door.

I applaud Obama for thinking how to get people off the unemployment rolls (although I quibble about the details of his plan). We are in a downward spiral because we have fewer and fewer producers, which means the overall gross national income falls because too many people suck the economic life out of the GDI (gross domestic income). Fewer spenders, less demand for goods and services, fewer workers, even fewer spenders, continued dropping demand, and you circle the drain. Put a stopper in the drain, and you will see demand rise, more workers, more spenders, and we're back on a growth path.

Government isn't the engine. The country is the engine -- ALL of the country. And the sooner we get more people paying taxes because more people are employed, the better. The USA used to be the country that works because its citizens were workers. That isn't true today.

Maybe the right thing is to start whittling at the salaries of the people in Congress, including pension benefits. Whittle at the salaries in the White House, too. Tie their earnings and their payouts to results, like stockholders are now doing to CEO pay.

The state level? There, too.

5 posted on 04/19/2012 1:59:14 PM PDT by asinclair (Everybody works, everybody pays.)
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To: asinclair

The only problem? As the US has offshored (outsourced) jobs over the last 40+ years, the Government stepped in to pick up the slack. That was the easy, popular thing to do, but it was also a vicious cycle. We are close to the tipping point now, and may even be over it. Unfortunately, the current generation of Politicians is too timid to break this pattern for a whole host of reasons, including social unrest. In fact, most politicians (including Obama) daydream how to create more clients. At this point, its impossible to seperate the financial from the political from the entitlement state—they are all part of one big, overheating machine. It will probably take a collapse of the whole system (worldwide, not just the US) to change things. The next 20 years won’t be pretty.


6 posted on 04/19/2012 2:19:04 PM PDT by rbg81
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To: asinclair
I applaud Obama for thinking how to get people off the unemployment rolls (although I quibble about the details of his plan).

I don't applaud him. Details matter. Creating government dependant class is a problem and you don't get people off the unemployment rolls by giving them unemployment benefits while they are actually working.http://news.yahoo.com/states-asked-apply-unemployment-test-plan-125932074.html
Obamanomics is the biggest disaster since Lord Keynes decided countries could spend/borrow/and print their way to prosperity.
7 posted on 04/19/2012 2:25:18 PM PDT by Idaho_Cowboy (Socialism: Just Say No!)
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To: Vintage Freeper; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; ...

Thanks VF.


8 posted on 04/19/2012 2:51:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (FReepathon 2Q time -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Vintage Freeper

[ Mitt Romney can change too. Who can convince him to change? ]

I didn’t trust Reagan either..
You can take the democrat out of the party BUT its damned hard to remove the democrat from the democrat..

Residual stupidity remains.. If they had any sense they wouldn’t have even been democrats..
Democracy was, is and will always be Mob Rule by Mobsters..


9 posted on 04/19/2012 3:04:05 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole...)
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To: Vintage Freeper

Why the hell would he change AFTER getting elected?


10 posted on 04/19/2012 3:11:11 PM PDT by mamelukesabre
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To: Vintage Freeper; Jim Robinson; Jeff Head; Cen-Tejas; sport; MWS; seekthetruth; Liz; ForGod'sSake; ..

>> “Prior to 1964, Ronald Reagan spent most of his life as a New Deal Democrat. Ronald Reagan changed.” <<

.
Prior to 1964 Ron Reagan worshipped Jesus Christ, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD.

Clearly, Mitt Romney does not. He has zero idea who YHWH is, who Ye’shua is, and he worships himself. He won’t change any more than W changed; he is like W the second, and we cannot survive that.


11 posted on 04/19/2012 3:39:59 PM PDT by editor-surveyor
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To: Vintage Freeper
Prior to 1964, Ronald Reagan spent most of his life as a New Deal Democrat. Ronald Reagan changed. Mitt Romney can change too. Who can convince him to change?

Ronald Reagan didn't change his views to fit the office he was running for. His was a natural progression. Mitt's progression is about as natural as a plate of Twinkies, and about as nutritious as well.

It is going to be a very, very, very hard sell that I can believe anything Mitt says. Because he has said the opposite when it suits him and his actions as governor were often utterly atrocious and an affront to conservatism.

12 posted on 04/19/2012 3:40:33 PM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Vintage Freeper

If you are now going to push Romney on this forum you can go back to hell and the land of ZOT!!

As the man said, Never, never get out of the boat!!

And never unzot a banned RINO!!


13 posted on 04/19/2012 3:43:27 PM PDT by Jim Robinson (There's no crying in rebellion!!)
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To: editor-surveyor

“Clearly, Mitt Romney does not. He has zero idea who YHWH is, who Ye’shua is, and he worships himself.”

are you confusing Romney with BO? talk about self- worshipping. clearly, our current dear leader is only a pseudo-Christian at best.

“He won’t change any more than W changed; he is like W the second, and we cannot survive that.”

and you think that America as we know it can survive another 4 years of BO? funny, if you look at where we were at the end of George W. Bush’s term and where we are near the end of BO’s first term, i will take Bush’s outcome over BO’s any day. God save America.


14 posted on 04/19/2012 3:54:43 PM PDT by IWONDR
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To: asinclair
"And the sooner we get more people paying taxes because more people are employed, the better. The USA used to be the country that works because its citizens were workers. That isn't true today."

It will be true again, after we starve every bipartisan, regulating, environmentalist, animal worshiping or otherwise politically correct, socialist tyrant out of government revenues (as debt without revenues only yields a quickly worthless currency). Political/regulator/busybody class folks will soon be nearly exclusive on their worthless plantation of debt.

In the meantime, it's illegal to drill/mine for energy, build, do repairs or manufacture things for them anyway (zoning/bribes, even in the middle of nowhere).


15 posted on 04/19/2012 3:55:04 PM PDT by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: editor-surveyor

INDEED.

. . . sigh.


16 posted on 04/19/2012 3:58:29 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: editor-surveyor
He won’t change any more than W changed; he is like W the second, and we cannot survive that.

W at least had a few core conservative values. I have seen none in Mitt.

17 posted on 04/19/2012 5:07:47 PM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Vintage Freeper

I read your Executive Summary, and will digest the rest over the course of the next week or so. Thanks!


18 posted on 04/19/2012 5:09:36 PM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: IWONDR

I don’t know about you, but I am still looking for a solution, not just a Republican in charge of our demise.

Do you have an image in the mirror?


19 posted on 04/19/2012 10:01:41 PM PDT by editor-surveyor
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To: dirtboy

W at least had some personal pride that tempered his destructive urges. Romney and Obama have no shame.
.


20 posted on 04/19/2012 10:04:02 PM PDT by editor-surveyor
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