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Government Shutdown: Don’t Believe the Hype

Rocketman

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Life goes on without all 3.4 million federal workers.

Government wants you to play a role in the "shutdown" of the federal government. Your role is to panic.

Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. "Shutdown threatens fragile economy," warns Politico. "Federal workers turn to prayer," laments The Washington Post.

If the public starts noticing that life goes on as usual without all 3.4 million federal workers, we might get dangerous ideas, like doing without so much government. Politicians don't want that.

They'd rather have us worry about how America will cope.

President Obama gave a speech where he actually said we need to keep government open for the sake of people like the person working for the Department of Agriculture "out there helping some farmers make sure that they're making some modest profit," and the Department of Housing and Urban Development "helping somebody buy a house for the first time."

Give me a break. Farmers don't need bureaucrats to teach them how to make a profit, and Americans can buy first homes without HUD helping a chosen few. Americans would make more profit and afford better homes if they didn't have to spend a third of national income on federal taxes.

Government Shutdown: Don
 
Interesting point... The longer the shutdown goes on the easier "End The Fed" becomes? Pipe dream but still interesting.
 
Life goes on without all 3.4 million federal workers.

Government wants you to play a role in the "shutdown" of the federal government. Your role is to panic.

Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. "Shutdown threatens fragile economy," warns Politico. "Federal workers turn to prayer," laments The Washington Post.

If the public starts noticing that life goes on as usual without all 3.4 million federal workers, we might get dangerous ideas, like doing without so much government. Politicians don't want that.

They'd rather have us worry about how America will cope.

President Obama gave a speech where he actually said we need to keep government open for the sake of people like the person working for the Department of Agriculture "out there helping some farmers make sure that they're making some modest profit," and the Department of Housing and Urban Development "helping somebody buy a house for the first time."

Give me a break. Farmers don't need bureaucrats to teach them how to make a profit, and Americans can buy first homes without HUD helping a chosen few. Americans would make more profit and afford better homes if they didn't have to spend a third of national income on federal taxes.

Government Shutdown: Don

Life isn't going on as usual, but okay.
 
Condoning national anarchy will not win the republicon party many followers...
...but don't let me stop you.
Carry on.
 
Condoning national anarchy will not win the republicon party many followers...
...but don't let me stop you.
Carry on.

Anarchy is why we are being asked to raise the ceiling again.
 
Is that why the Republicans lead in the generic polls now? I think the people know exactly who is to blame for the shutdown.

But, as for myself...I feel no pain, no difference with the shutdown. Hell, if anything it has been better. Gas prices have dropped almost $0.40 since the shutdown began. If that's the side effect, I'm game for a long term shut down.

We all know the real end game here. Obama did it with sequestration and he's doing it with the shutdown. He wants to make it seem as though any cuts to spending will lead to major hardships. That will then give him the moral authority to raise taxes on the rich and big business (whatever that is) which ultimately means the government takes over a larger share of the economy and more economic freedom is lost for everyone.
 
I think it is actually better, I could stand it to go on.

The superstructure that provides effective direction for American economic development is gone. Farmers not getting subsidies also means farmers have no incentive to develop crops that are bad for themselves but stimulate the economy as a whole. People not getting houses means they are not building equity at the rate we need them to to maintain a globally competitive market.

In a few days, none of this matters. If years went by, the face of our civilization would begin to change in a bad way.
 
The superstructure that provides effective direction for American economic development is gone. Farmers not getting subsidies also means farmers have no incentive to develop crops that are bad for themselves but stimulate the economy as a whole. People not getting houses means they are not building equity at the rate we need them to to maintain a globally competitive market.

In a few days, none of this matters. If years went by, the face of our civilization would begin to change in a bad way.

I see you are from IA, how much more incentive do they need? they have been living off the backs of taxpayers for years now:

Iowa Summary Information

•$24.9 billion in subsidies 1995-2012.
$16.4 billion in commodity subsidies.
$4.00 billion in crop insurance subsidies.
$3.86 billion in conservation subsidies.
$646 million in disaster subsidies.
•Iowa ranking: 2 of 50 States
•19 percent of farms in Iowa did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
•Ten percent collected 59 percent of all subsidies.
•Amounting to $12.3 billion over 18 years.
•Top 10%: $34,475 average per year between 1995 and 2012.
•Bottom 80%: $1,565 average per year between 1995 and 2012.




EWG Farm Subsidy Database
 
I see you are from IA, how much more incentive do they need? they have been living off the backs of taxpayers for years now:

Iowa Summary Information

•$24.9 billion in subsidies 1995-2012.
$16.4 billion in commodity subsidies.
$4.00 billion in crop insurance subsidies.
$3.86 billion in conservation subsidies.
$646 million in disaster subsidies.
•Iowa ranking: 2 of 50 States
•19 percent of farms in Iowa did not collect subsidy payments - according to USDA.
•Ten percent collected 59 percent of all subsidies.
•Amounting to $12.3 billion over 18 years.
•Top 10%: $34,475 average per year between 1995 and 2012.
•Bottom 80%: $1,565 average per year between 1995 and 2012.




EWG Farm Subsidy Database

... if farmers pursued their own rational self-interest, then there wouldn't be enough food to sustain our ballooning population. Since they aren't slaves or servants and our civilization can't survive that way, we have to pay them to stop that from happening.
 
... if farmers pursued their own rational self-interest, then there wouldn't be enough food to sustain our ballooning population. Since they aren't slaves or servants and our civilization can't survive that way, we have to pay them to stop that from happening.

What? How is it not in the farmers self interest to provide the market with their product? Why do we need the government providing farmers with subsidies so that they actually sell their product and expand their business?
 
What? How is it not in the farmers self interest to provide the market with their product? Why do we need the government providing farmers with subsidies so that they actually sell their product and expand their business?

(1) They can manipulate supply and demand of specific crops to make practices like feeding livestock prohibitively expensive. Instead, they are paid to produce crops at the rates necessary to stimulate other stretches of the food industry. The government, rather than the farmer, provides the direction for the market.

(2) Among other reasons, because their business needs to be capable of more than what they would be capable of as a wholly privatized entity in order to make ends meet on the world's food supply. Since farmers take massive losses on bad years, their businesses would be continually going bankrupt rather than expanding to the extent necessary to feed livestock and people. 'Farming' isn't an intrinsically stable or profitable market, which is one reason why human technological development has been excrutiatingly slow for tens of thousands of years, and why farms were constantly going into foreclosure in previous decades.
 
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... if farmers pursued their own rational self-interest, then there wouldn't be enough food to sustain our ballooning population. Since they aren't slaves or servants and our civilization can't survive that way, we have to pay them to stop that from happening.

that is pure bull****, they would operate to meet demand. Taxpayers should not be supporting them. You know we have made average people into millionaires don't you?
 
Life goes on without all 3.4 million federal workers.

Government wants you to play a role in the "shutdown" of the federal government. Your role is to panic.

Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. "Shutdown threatens fragile economy," warns Politico. "Federal workers turn to prayer," laments The Washington Post.

If the public starts noticing that life goes on as usual without all 3.4 million federal workers, we might get dangerous ideas, like doing without so much government. Politicians don't want that.

They'd rather have us worry about how America will cope.

President Obama gave a speech where he actually said we need to keep government open for the sake of people like the person working for the Department of Agriculture "out there helping some farmers make sure that they're making some modest profit," and the Department of Housing and Urban Development "helping somebody buy a house for the first time."

Give me a break. Farmers don't need bureaucrats to teach them how to make a profit, and Americans can buy first homes without HUD helping a chosen few. Americans would make more profit and afford better homes if they didn't have to spend a third of national income on federal taxes.

Government Shutdown: Don

Given that most of the net beneficiaries of federal government money (states that use more in federal spending than they contribute in tax revenue), we will see how this goes. I just thank God that Conservative strategists are not in charge of the US military.

Federal taxation and spending by state - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
that is pure bull****, they would operate to meet demand. Taxpayers should not be supporting them. You know we have made average people into millionaires don't you?

... "demand" isn't some magical equalizer where everything works out to being the same without government as with it. It's a relative statistic that changes due to the circumstances. You need to consider economics from a practical view.

For example, consistently bad harvests could lead farmers to over emphasize crops that survive, like rice and soybeans, rather than the grains that are fed to livestock, causing the latter industry to take prohibitively damaging losses. The farmers would be alright with this arrangement because the only foods that exist in the market are the ones they grow, but aside from resulting in a poor diet quality, it would also put a massive burden on regions where population vastly exceeds available farmland. That is, the rice becomes more valuable the further away it is from the farming's economic center, even if the population itself is larger (as in the East Coast), which can feed into social unrest.

As it is, farmers are paid to produce surpluses of crops that are beneficial to the economy as a whole whether they are successful or not. We can't stop bad harvests from happening, but we can pay farmers to not alter their business model away from what society needs it to be to sustain population and economic growth. The price of livestock may fluctuate on a given year, but it never is in danger of failing entirely due to the choices of farmers. The government removes their ability to choose how to run their business by making them an offer they can't refuse: planting desired crops in exchange for millions.
 
... "demand" isn't some magical equalizer where everything works out to being the same without government as with it. It's a relative statistic that changes due to the circumstances. You need to consider economics from a practical view.

For example, consistently bad harvests could lead farmers to over emphasize crops that survive, like rice, rather than the grains that are fed to livestock, causing the latter industry to take prohibitively damaging losses. The farmers would be alright with this arrangement because the only foods that exist in the market are the ones they grow, but aside from resulting in a poor diet quality, it would also put a massive burden on regions where population vastly exceeds available farmland. That is, the rice becomes more valuable the further away it is from the farming's economic center, even if the population itself is larger (as in the East Coast), which can feed into social unrest.

As it is, farmers are paid to produce surpluses of crops that are beneficial to the economy as a whole whether they are successful or not. We can't stop bad harvests from happening, but we can pay farmers to not alter their business model away from what society needs it to be to sustain population and economic growth.

We are paying them way too much, to say different either means you are one or you have no issue spending borrowed money to support millionaires, which is it?
 
We are paying them way too much, to say different either means you are one or you have no issue spending borrowed money to support millionaires, which is it?

I'm not a farmer.

The money isn't "borrowed", it is taxes applied to the general welfare by shaping the relations between different parts of the food industry into an economically coheisve unit that is capable of meeting the challenges of feeding 300,000,000+ people. Unless you don't eat, you personally benefit from it by lower prices in the supermarket, and frankly, by having food in the supermarket at all.

As far as "paying them too much" goes, I'd have to see the math.
 
I'm not a farmer.

The money isn't "borrowed", it is taxes applied to the general welfare by shaping the relations between different parts of the food industry into an economically coheisve unit that is capable of meeting the challenges of feeding 300,000,000+ people. Unless you don't eat, you personally benefit from it by lower prices in the supermarket, and frankly, by having food in the supermarket at all.

As far as "paying them too much" goes, I'd have to see the math.

I just showed it to you, jesus ****ing christ, go to the EWG site I posted, enter your zip code and see what all of your neighbors are collecting. and it is taxpayer money.
 
I just showed it to you, jesus ****ing christ, go to the EWG site I posted, enter your zip code and see what all of your neighbors are collecting. and it is taxpayer money.

You showed me a bunch of numbers, you didn't show me how it is too much.

For example, since 20% of farmers are comfortable NOT taking the subsidy and the responsibility that goes along with it, that implies the millions aren't tempting enough for them to change the direction of their business model to one that suits the nation as a whole.

Which challenges the idea that farmers are paid too much. The millions don't represent raw profit, but also reimbursement for machines, material, and time, all of which are very expensive.

"Millions of dollars" isn't a lot of money considering the costs of production, or with the value of the product (food) surpassing healthcare in degree of importance to human survival.
 
You showed me a bunch of numbers, you didn't show me how it is too much.

For example, since 20% of farmers are comfortable NOT taking the subsidy and the responsibility that goes along with it, that implies the millions aren't tempting enough for them to change the direction of their business model to one that suits the nation as a whole.

Which challenges the idea that farmers are paid too much. The millions don't represent raw profit, but also reimbursement for machines, material, and time, all of which are very expensive.

"Millions of dollars" isn't a lot of money considering the costs of production, or with the value of the product (food) surpassing healthcare in degree of importance to human survival.

Irrelevant: go to the site punch in your zip code and get ready to be suprised how many of your neighbors have been supported by your tax dollars probably way better that you have instead of being paid by their performance like most of us are.

If you are afraid to use the site, I understand and will not waste any more time with you.
 
Because of a blizzard, 100% of Ranchers/Farmers in Western South Dakota have lost up to their whole herd, have no way of getting rid of the carcasses and are screaming at Sen. Thune (R). Not surprisingly, he wants 'that' part of govt. to reopen. Overall, House Repubs now want EIGHT 'THAT' parts of the govt. to reopen.
 
Because of a blizzard, 100% of Ranchers/Farmers in Western South Dakota have lost up to their whole herd, have no way of getting rid of the carcasses and are screaming at Sen. Thune (R). Not surprisingly, he wants 'that' part of govt. to reopen. Overall, House Repubs now want EIGHT 'THAT' parts of the govt. to reopen.
I just saw an interview with a crab fisherman from Alaska. He points out that because of the republicon government shut down they can't get fishing permits and so can't fish. The Russian fishermen are taking advantage of the situation and making record hauls with no competition.
Republicons are helping Russian fishermen.
 
Good story on how Alaskan fishermen are being hurt..
Same with the blizzard-weary farmers/ranchers in Western SD who have lost part or all of the their herds and can't dispose of the carcasses..
Repub Sen. Thune wants that part of govt. open rigtht now..He must be forgetting how he hurt Sandy aid.
I just saw an interview with a crab fisherman from Alaska. He points out that because of the republicon government shut down they can't get fishing permits and so can't fish. The Russian fishermen are taking advantage of the situation and making record hauls with no competition.
Republicons are helping Russian fishermen.
 
Life isn't going on as usual, but okay.

Exactly. My county is losing a lot of money because the National Park by us is closed; plus all those furloughed workers aren't too keen on spending right now.

And that's not mentioning all the research that isn't getting down, and the many other impacts of the shutdown.
 
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