09:25 – Paul and Mary weren’t available yesterday, so Barbara and I did a Costco run by ourselves. As usual, we picked up three more cases of 35 half-liter bottles of water. We’ll keep that up until we have at least 500 liters of stored water. Call it 30 cases. The stuff was on sale yesterday for $2.09 per case, or six cents a bottle.
Barbara labeled and filled a bunch of containers yesterday, and left me with a bunch more that are labeled and need to be filled. I’ll work on those today.
How often will you rotate out the water?
Maybe every thousand years or so. The shelf life of bottled water is essentially infinite.
“Did you miss your IRS agent today?”
http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/did-you-miss-your-irs-agent-today-12763/
“As we have routinely discussed, the US government now fails to collect enough tax revenue to pay interest on the debt and cover mandatory entitlement spending.”
“Capital controls. Gun controls. Wage and price controls. Steep penalties for minor infractions and victimless crimes. Suspension of Habeas Corpus. Confiscation of private pensions and retirement accounts. Huge tax increases. Dual currency systems.”
Sobering. Scary. Feels like I am watching a dinosaur stagger around looking for a place to die and I am underneath it’s ten foot wide legs.
Where does the basis for this quote ”the US government now fails to collect enough tax revenue to pay interest on the debt and cover mandatory entitlement spending” keep coming from? This is clearly not true.
Just a quick perusal of various Internet sources easily indicates the breakdown of US government spending. Most is repeated in Wikipedia. First, tax revenues are at historical highs. Never before in the history of the country have we been taking in so much money. Of all that spending, borrowing represents 19% of all spending. There are a lot of well-performing corporations that have much higher borrowing figures in their spending budgets than that.
If you don’t think the US is not already a socialist country, think again: all entitlement spending is currently 60% of all spending. Now since 19% of spending is borrowed and not tax financed, then I suppose it depends on what 19% you are going to call financed by borrowing. But since tax revenues represent the support of 81% of all spending, there certainly is quite enough tax revenue to pay for ALL entitlement spending and then some, unless you play semantic games.
What is your definition of entitlement spending? Just Social Security and Medicare? Or does it also include SS Disability, Medicaid, Food Stamps, WIC and Section 8 housing? Does it include the new Obamacare mandatory spending?
Entitlement spending has been legally defined as “mandatory” spending that is required by law. Most of what is included is noted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_spending
Actual numbers for 2010, the most recent year of revisions that are final, were 56%, but I rounded up to 60%.
As for Obamacare, that has been widely projected to cost 1.5 trillion over 10 years. That is 0.8% of projected 200 trillion GDP over the same period, or—on a yearly basis—4% of actual US government spending which has been about 3.5 trillion for the past few years. Of course, that is if the cost of Obamacare were 100% a government cost. But it won’t be. You and I will be making out-of-pocket insurance payments for a good part of that 1.5 trillion of Obamacare cost, thus the price tag to government will be less than the 1.5 trillion because we will be paying a good part of that directly from our (and our business’) pockets, not through government funds.
Scary figures, huh?
Here’s another scary figure, ha, ha; we’ve brought up the hypothetical numbers of firearms in the country here before; dig this: Remington, one company, has sold ONE rifle, the 700 bolt-action, since 1962, five-million, which is about a hundred-thousand a year over fifty years. The country had roughly half the current population back then, too. Now imagine a host of companies, each with a host of products. Imagine further the increase in just the last few years of the current regime.
Of course, that is if the cost of Obamacare were 100% a government cost. But it won’t be. You and I will be making out-of-pocket insurance payments for a good part of that 1.5 trillion of Obamacare cost, thus the price tag to government will be less than the 1.5 trillion because we will be paying a good part of that directly from our (and our business’) pockets, not through government funds.
I think the 1.5 trillion over 10 years is the cost to the government, net of taxes collected. And the 1.5 trillion started the year it was passed, not this coming fiscal year. It was scored that way because some of the tax increases kicked in before the expenditures, so the revenue was somewhat front loaded and the expenses back loaded. IIRC, the 1.5 trillion also included the expected revenue from the imposition of 1099s for all business expenditures as of last year, which was supposed to bring in a bunch of tax money on revenue that small businesses are supposedly hiding. In addition, the CBO has repeatedly said that they don’t believe the bill’s scoring, in particular the cost reductions are said to be unrealistic. For example, it assumes that the Medicare/Medicaid provider reimbursements won’t get “fixed” each year by Congress and will drop 30% or so according to the formula put in place a while back.
Chuck might find this interesting:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-01/das-the-retreat-from-globalisation/4989028/
European desperation…
Escalating sovereign debt and banking sector problems favour European introspection.
As a single unit, the eurozone’s current account is nearly balanced, its trade account has a small surplus, the overall fiscal deficit is modest, and the aggregate level of public debt, while high, is manageable. But there are significant disparities between individual members of the eurozone in terms of income levels, public finances, external account and debt levels. Greater integration would help resolve some of these variations.
However, it would necessitate a net wealth transfer from richer nations to weaker members. Stronger, more-creditworthy members would also have to underwrite the borrowings of weaker nations. Currently, there is significant opposition to such plans, predictably from net lenders such as Germany, Finland and Netherlands.
Irrespective of its policy choices, Europe faces a prolonged period of economic stagnation as it works off its debt burden and undertakes major structural changes to correct imbalances. During this transition, Europe will be forced to focus internally, husbanding savings and wealth needed to absorb the required large debt write-offs.
Chuck the $1.5 trillion figure over ten years is just the cost to the government. It relies on just about every accounting trick in the book. Plus, the people making the estimates are the same people who routinely overestimate the revenue generated by a tax increase and routinely underestimate the spending required for a new government program.
Are you actually expecting an answer? “Shoot, shovel, shut up” isn’t just for coyotes, you know.