CheapyD on U.S.' debt ceiling

Responsible people always get screwed, thats just the way life goes. Does not matter if its the government, your family or friends that's the way it works. My wifes grandma just hit the lotto for a few million. She is giving money to her cousins that got knocked up early in life and quit every job they ever get within a month because "they need the help". Meanwhile my wife and her cousin who are extreamly responsible are getting nothing because "I dont have to worry about you, you have a good head on your shoulders".

Does not matter if its family or the government that is the way society handles things. Reward the idiots, the lazy and the greedy and penalize the hard working, self sacrificing and the caring.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']The debt ceiling legislation passing sure hasn't stabilized the stock market short term.

The Dow fell a couple hundred points on Tuesday, was up slightly yesterday, and is down 300 some points currently.[/QUOTE]

Austerity. fuck yeah.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']If you're in the tea party and you're receiving Medicare you have immediately lost all credibility.[/QUOTE]

Agreed.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Responsible people always get screwed, thats just the way life goes. Does not matter if its the government, your family or friends that's the way it works. My wifes grandma just hit the lotto for a few million. She is giving money to her cousins that got knocked up early in life and quit every job they ever get within a month because "they need the help". Meanwhile my wife and her cousin who are extreamly responsible are getting nothing because "I dont have to worry about you, you have a good head on your shoulders".

Does not matter if its family or the government that is the way society handles things. Reward the idiots, the lazy and the greedy and penalize the hard working, self sacrificing and the caring.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but they'd only lose all the money and be back where they started, whereas you will still have come stability. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel envious of their windfall, but that it isn't all that its cracked up to be.

As for being screwed by being responsible, I don't see how you can include those at the bottom for "laziness" in the equation. Living on the dole isn't as easy as many make it to be especially when making $10 an hour at a fulltime job doesn't give you that much of higher standard of living.
 
[quote name='dohdough']Yeah, but they'd only lose all the money and be back where they started, whereas you will still have come stability. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel envious of their windfall, but that it isn't all that its cracked up to be.

As for being screwed by being responsible, I don't see how you can include those at the bottom for "laziness" in the equation. Living on the dole isn't as easy as many make it to be especially when making $10 an hour at a fulltime job doesn't give you that much of higher standard of living.[/QUOTE]

As I have been over a million times I lived off of welfare for several years and also watched my family do so for a few years. I know how hard it can be and how limited it can be. It does not mean many at the bottom are lazy, most people just in general are lazy.

As for windfalls, thats not exactly a good point. First off she is not giving them money she is buying them things like cars and houses. Second off it is indeed frustrating because again its an example of being penalized for being responsible. Hell we bought her grandmas house in part to help her get out of it, then right after she moved out an issue came up with their basement that cost us a third of the value of the house. Even if we are responsible and smart it does not mean we do not face constant hardships that set us back. As it stands we just spent 90% of all the money we have in the world to fix the above mentioned housing issue.

When she hit the lotto I did not expect to see dime one of it. However now that its been a month or so and I am seeing her pass out favors to people it does bug me. Not because I feel I am NOT getting anything, but because I feel others are being rewarded for being irresponsible while we are yet again being penalized for being responsible. Reminds me of being a kid. My mom was always so busy dealing with my screw up brother who was constantly in court for selling drugs that anytime I needed anything I had to figure it out myself or manipulate her in to helping.

As I said above THAT is what bugs me, that in general we in society reward screw ups be they at the top(the banks, wall street idiots and the giant corporations)or at the bottom(the people that really dont want to get off welfare or work). If you cant handle life then dont worry the government or your family will bail you out. However if you are responsible and look to your future you are forgotten and ignored.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Sure. It's income redistribution for sure, and it is essentially a tax. I have no problem with it. If I save enough that I have plenty to live well in retirement, I have no problem not getting my social security and having that money help people who are worse off.

The better off should be taxed more to help those who are worse off. Bentham's notion of utilitarianism wasn't just that individuals maximize their pleasure and minimize pain, but also that government and society should be set up to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The latter point has largely fallen by the wayside and people only care about their own well being these days.[/QUOTE]

America does not see itself as a utilitarian country. Too many Americans get a hard-on for laissez-faire capitalism, no matter how much that ideology fails miserably.
 
I still don't see how you conflate them getting cars and houses with you being "punished" for being responsible. I don't see how you can quantify it unless you see the grandmother giving the other kids stuff and not giving anything to you, as a form of malice, as "punishment." If you're using that logic, I'm sorry, but thats stupid. What was that quote about bowls and neighbors again?

The only punishment I see, and actually it isn't, is that you should've known better than to get screwed by your wife's grandmother with the house. Either way, there's an element of mutual exclusivity here.

edit:added the malice part for clarity
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']....or at the bottom(the people that really dont want to get off welfare or work). If you cant handle life then dont worry the government or your family will bail you out. However if you are responsible and look to your future you are forgotten and ignored.[/QUOTE]

The problem is people like you focus to much on the "welfare queens."

These are not the majority of people who can't save enough for retirement.

The majority are just the working lower class. People that were born into tough circumstances and/or made bad decisions when they were in their teens/early 20s and thus were never able to do more than low paying, manual labor jobs.

They can work hard all their life up until their in their 60s or whenever they can physically no longer do the work and have pretty much no chance of having saved enough to retire and pay their costs for the next 20-30 years or however long they live. Just just can't save that kind of money when you spent your life working low paying, manual labor jobs.

Those type of people, who make up the majority of the lower class, get overlooked by people who focus on the welfare queens and bitch about how they don't deserve to get their tax money etc. Instead of thinking about the welfare queens, think about the majority--the working poor who bust ass and still have nothing and couldn't save up for retirement.

That's why we need things like social security and medicare and medicaid. There will always be some who abuse the system. But it's better to just swallow those bitter pills than to deny needed help to people who worked hard all their lives but just didn't have the opportunities those of us who are better of did--be it from where they were born, or mistakes they made in their youth etc.
 
[quote name='camoor']America does not see itself as a utilitarian country. Too many Americans get a hard-on for laissez-faire capitalism, no matter how much that ideology fails miserably.[/QUOTE]
You don't want the U.S. to be a strictly utilitarian country. We have enough ends justify the means types as it is.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']As I have been over a million times I lived off of welfare for several years and also watched my family do so for a few years. I know how hard it can be and how limited it can be. It does not mean many at the bottom are lazy, most people just in general are lazy.

As for windfalls, thats not exactly a good point. First off she is not giving them money she is buying them things like cars and houses. Second off it is indeed frustrating because again its an example of being penalized for being responsible. Hell we bought her grandmas house in part to help her get out of it, then right after she moved out an issue came up with their basement that cost us a third of the value of the house. Even if we are responsible and smart it does not mean we do not face constant hardships that set us back. As it stands we just spent 90% of all the money we have in the world to fix the above mentioned housing issue.

When she hit the lotto I did not expect to see dime one of it. However now that its been a month or so and I am seeing her pass out favors to people it does bug me. Not because I feel I am NOT getting anything, but because I feel others are being rewarded for being irresponsible while we are yet again being penalized for being responsible. Reminds me of being a kid. My mom was always so busy dealing with my screw up brother who was constantly in court for selling drugs that anytime I needed anything I had to figure it out myself or manipulate her in to helping.

As I said above THAT is what bugs me, that in general we in society reward screw ups be they at the top(the banks, wall street idiots and the giant corporations)or at the bottom(the people that really dont want to get off welfare or work). If you cant handle life then dont worry the government or your family will bail you out. However if you are responsible and look to your future you are forgotten and ignored.[/QUOTE]

Yeah but what can be done about it?

Responsibility is a lost cause. The Wall Street people are completely amoral and only care about two things: making money and staying out of jail.

Therefore the only way America's economic system is going to work long-term is under comprehensive and iron-clad regulation enforced by competent and proactive agents. The problem is fundamental to laissez-faire capitalism. You can't have stability without adequate regulation.

The Wall Street people who brought America's economy to the brink of collapse were not idiots, they knew what they were doing. Their only true goal was to amass incredible personal wealth and in this they were wildly sucessful. However in doing so they almost brought down the whole house of cards. I'd rather not go through it again in my lifetime...
 
[quote name='Clak']You don't want the U.S. to be a strictly utilitarian country. We have enough ends justify the means types as it is.[/QUOTE]

Well that's the problem--the little utilitarianism we have is the individual-level "maximize pleasure, minimize pain" and not the society level "greatest good for the greatest number."

But that's the inherent problem with Bentham's idea. The individual-level portion is counter-intuitive to the society level part.

If people are only focused on maximizing their pleasure and minimizing their pain, there's little to no support for social programming that doesn't fit them as everyone would be tea party types who are only concerned with their own interests.
 
[quote name='Clak']You don't want the U.S. to be a strictly utilitarian country. We have enough ends justify the means types as it is.[/QUOTE]

I don't think the US should be strictly anything (at least anything that exists today). Pure ideologies must be tempered by practicality and reason. The US has always benefitted from employing a shopping-cart ideology, the philisophical analogue to the great melting pot.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Well that's the problem--the little utilitarianism we have is the individual-level "maximize pleasure, minimize pain" and not the society level "greatest good for the greatest number."

But that's the inherent problem with Bentham's idea. The individual-level portion is counter-intuitive to the society level part.

If people are only focused on maximizing their pleasure and minimizing their pain, there's little to no support for social programming that doesn't fit them as everyone would be tea party types who are only concerned with their own interests.[/QUOTE]
It's all up to how you look at things though. It depends on what you see utility in, and that changes depending on a person's views. I mean lets say that we had invaded Iraq and things went better and we had a new, friendly source of oil, I'm sure someone would see the utility in going to war to secure a new source of oil.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']
As for windfalls, thats not exactly a good point. First off she is not giving them money she is buying them things like cars and houses. Second off it is indeed frustrating because again its an example of being penalized for being responsible. Hell we bought her grandmas house in part to help her get out of it, then right after she moved out an issue came up with their basement that cost us a third of the value of the house. Even if we are responsible and smart it does not mean we do not face constant hardships that set us back. As it stands we just spent 90% of all the money we have in the world to fix the above mentioned housing issue.

When she hit the lotto I did not expect to see dime one of it. However now that its been a month or so and I am seeing her pass out favors to people it does bug me. Not because I feel I am NOT getting anything, but because I feel others are being rewarded for being irresponsible while we are yet again being penalized for being responsible. Reminds me of being a kid. My mom was always so busy dealing with my screw up brother who was constantly in court for selling drugs that anytime I needed anything I had to figure it out myself or manipulate her in to helping.

As I said above THAT is what bugs me, that in general we in society reward screw ups be they at the top(the banks, wall street idiots and the giant corporations)or at the bottom(the people that really dont want to get off welfare or work). If you cant handle life then dont worry the government or your family will bail you out. However if you are responsible and look to your future you are forgotten and ignored.[/QUOTE]

You bought her house to help her out, paid a fortune to fix it up, and she gives you nothing??? Wow, that's messed up.

I feel the same way as you about our society (government and families, as you mentioned) rewarding the screw-ups. It's frustrating.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']The problem is people like you focus to much on the "welfare queens."

These are not the majority of people who can't save enough for retirement.

The majority are just the working lower class. People that were born into tough circumstances and/or made bad decisions when they were in their teens/early 20s and thus were never able to do more than low paying, manual labor jobs.

They can work hard all their life up until their in their 60s or whenever they can physically no longer do the work and have pretty much no chance of having saved enough to retire and pay their costs for the next 20-30 years or however long they live. Just just can't save that kind of money when you spent your life working low paying, manual labor jobs.

Those type of people, who make up the majority of the lower class, get overlooked by people who focus on the welfare queens and bitch about how they don't deserve to get their tax money etc. Instead of thinking about the welfare queens, think about the majority--the working poor who bust ass and still have nothing and couldn't save up for retirement.

That's why we need things like social security and medicare and medicaid. There will always be some who abuse the system. But it's better to just swallow those bitter pills than to deny needed help to people who worked hard all their lives but just didn't have the opportunities those of us who are better of did--be it from where they were born, or mistakes they made in their youth etc.[/QUOTE]

You are making some broad broad assumptions there. Again I was on welfare for a few years, I went through job training and all the other low income programs. I saw the system first hand. I know how many hard working and needy people end up on it. I also know that there is some serious abuse of the system. Republicans go way too far with welfare queen crap, but liberals like yourself also go way too far defending the status quo which is letting through some real leaches.

You also assume I am talking exclusivly about booting people off welfare. Again I have talked about repeatedly the need to reform the system. It needs more money, but it also needs to be restructed to truely help people sucking on the goverments tit stop if they want. Those job programs I went through were a joke, they gave a basic seminar, asked what was stopping you from working and then offered the most useless amount of help, stamped your case and marked you up as "client case resolved".

Like I said, as one of the few people here who has actually had to deal with the system first hand I see the need for more funding, but I also see a clear need to boot some leaches off and reform the system to help those that truly want and need it.

@doh doh - Again I think your showing how extreme you are and how insulting you enjoy being to people that disagree with you. You make a really ignorant and out there assumption that the basement was something we could predict and thus know better and your logic that those who do well deserve zero help = another extreme example of your world view. I dont know why I tried to again take you seriously, time and time again you basically debate like a leftist version of knoell.
 
[quote name='chiwii']You bought her house to help her out, paid a fortune to fix it up, and she gives you nothing??? Wow, that's messed up.

I feel the same way as you about our society (government and families, as you mentioned) rewarding the screw-ups. It's frustrating.[/QUOTE]

To us its not even about that. If she had kept all the money to herself id have said nothing. Or better yet if she had done something worthwhile with it. For instance we have a friend of the family with a young daughter that has a rare and crappy disease called black diamond anemia. They are way over their heads in debt trying to take care of her and could really use some help. If she had not given anything to any of the grandkids and then helped out someone like that, THAT would make sense, THAT id not complain about. But to give to a lazy welfare queen like my cousin and then tell someone like my wife or my other cousin who worked years for Nasa and actually saved his money...that annoys me. I wouldn't have even brought it up but as I said before its the perfect example for how we as a society tend to bail out people from the banks to Joe Schmoe for stupid spending habits, but then not offer nearly enough to those being responsible.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']@doh doh - Again I think your showing how extreme you are and how insulting you enjoy being to people that disagree with you. You make a really ignorant and out there assumption that the basement was something we could predict and thus know better and your logic that those who do well deserve zero help = another extreme example of your world view. I dont know why I tried to again take you seriously, time and time again you basically debate like a leftist version of knoell.[/QUOTE]
And again, you completely missed the point. I was being purposefully obtuse with the basement example to highlight how you.are.not.being.punished.

Think about it for a second. You think of those gifts as "rewards" for being irresponsible and having less. Using that framework, you consider not getting anything as "punishment." Do you not see how this relates to the Louis CK skit when you were the one to bring it up in the first place and how its inconsistant with your feelings on this?

If you want to relay this scenario on broader society, isn't it more important to shape a society in which something like this isn't even necessary as opposed to bouncing between moralistic and policy centered arguments which lead to victim blaming?

Or maybe you should just pop out a couple of kids to get that sweet sweet lotto moneyz out of spite.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']You are making some broad broad assumptions there. Again I was on welfare for a few years, I went through job training and all the other low income programs. I saw the system first hand. I know how many hard working and needy people end up on it. I also know that there is some serious abuse of the system. Republicans go way too far with welfare queen crap, but liberals like yourself also go way too far defending the status quo which is letting through some real leaches.

You also assume I am talking exclusivly about booting people off welfare. Again I have talked about repeatedly the need to reform the system. It needs more money, but it also needs to be restructed to truely help people sucking on the goverments tit stop if they want. Those job programs I went through were a joke, they gave a basic seminar, asked what was stopping you from working and then offered the most useless amount of help, stamped your case and marked you up as "client case resolved".

Like I said, as one of the few people here who has actually had to deal with the system first hand I see the need for more funding, but I also see a clear need to boot some leaches off and reform the system to help those that truly want and need it.
[/QUOTE]

I wasn't making any of the assumptions. Just pointing out that your whining in the last few posts was basically republican "welfare queen" rhetoric.

Everyone agrees we need welfare reform and that it needs to do more to help people get their lives on track and get off welfare rather than just letting people stay on in indefinitely in many cases.

But even with reforms there will always be people who abuse the system, and it's just something we have to live with. There are always going to be kids born to worthless parents who don't want to work and it's going to be societies burden to support such families be it through wel-fare or placing the kids in group homes or foster families etc.

My point was just that we should be more concerned with making sure people who truly need help despite working hard/being willing to work hard, get the help that they need, than we are about the minority of people who abuse the system.

That doesn't mean we don't make reforms to minimize abuse. It just means that the primary focus is on helping those who need it.
 
A piss poor effort at it under Clinton.

Reform has to focus on making the program much more focused on providing education and job training, and placing people in jobs, to get people off the cycle of poverty. As well as treatment for addicts etc. etc.

Not just doing better at detecting and dealing with those who abuse it. Make it actually work and help people get their life on track, then worry about abuse issues.
 
[quote name='Msut77']There aren't any jobs and there won't be for a long time.[/QUOTE]

That is a problem, and Obama et al (mostly the republicans though) missed a chance to make a dent in it with the stimulus spending.

It needed to be larger, and it should have been more focused on public works projects. The infrastructure in this country is crumbling, they could have created thousands of jobs repairing roads and bridges, building new roads in high traffic areas, expanding national parks etc. etc.

For the highly educated/skilled who are out of work, a lot more funding could have went to new research and development efforts. Be it clean energy tech, internet tech, space travel etc. etc.
 
Reward - Punish Thing
It isn't so much being punished as not being rewarded. You see the fuckups get rewarded with the windfall but see nothing coming your way. It's that lack of reward that is hard to call anything other than punishment.
Not you specificaly, but on a broad scale it makes a lot of sense. You stated your point ad naseum and I get it.

Jobs
Latest numbers were what, 11.3 million unemplyed and 3 million jobs available. You can have all the jobs training programs you want, you're still going to have 8 million + people out of work (this of course doesn't include people who no longer qualify and are still looking).
You get your super retards such as Rush and Sean Insanity calling 99 weeks of unemployment a vacation, without looking at the other side of the issue that job creation and economic growth is just not there. Yes, a month and a half short of 2 years of unemployment is excessive and absolutely crazy. It's even worse that it's necessary... Unemployment used to be just at the state level and limited to what, 4 or 5 months? That's because you could usually find an equivalent job in that time.
Now we've gone from the greatest generation to the greediest generation and job cuts are accepted as a move toward investor profit. Used to be that growth was the ideal, now it's profit at any cost and ASAP. That leads to the crazy people demonizing profits (essentially the super socialist lefties that are equal to the tea party types in their intellectual dishonesty) which of course opens the door for broad strokes to be painted by your hard core righties in saying that Obama wants to take over the whole economy and other BS as such.

Meanwhile, the true vandals are still making off with everything and taking the jobs with them.

The minutiae of the issues is where the complexity lays. This shit really isn't that hard to wrap your head around, but the mouthpieces on the far sides of the political spectrum create so much turmoil that "a nice pleasant day at the office" is a bad thing in D.C., and next thing you know every little issue has to become some great moment in American History or some such BS.
 
The dow ended up over 500 points down today. The biggest one day drop since October 2008, and the 9th largest drop in it's history.
 
You know I just read a newspaper article nasum that supports your view. It talked about how in the days of old (baby boomers) a CEO would view the amount of workers he/she had as a sign of success. They would view it with pride and evidence that their company was successful and expanding.

Now CEO take pride in the fact that they can get the about the same production from about half the work staff. They want to know how much work they can produce with the least amount of workers regardless of quality of life of the worker. Whether unintentional or not the article mention that the general feelings now is that its better to work one person 50 plus hours a week then to have a full time and a part time.

Of course like everything it was just the author of the articles opinion.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Don't think this was posted yet....Krugman's take on the debt ceiling deal from a couple days ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/o...debt-ceiling.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss[/QUOTE]

Much more general critique of the typical Krugman perspective (shorter Krugman: Obama is a moderate-to-right conservative because he's a wimp that will scold his progressive base for not supporting his conservative policies, but never would dare stand up to his opposition).

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/02/285581/a-dimes-worth-of-difference/

I'm more inclined to agree with Krugman, but there are some substantive differences that arise from mild policy differences. Still, it feels like the parties are "Republican" and "Diet Republican."
 
I love "panic selling" as it pertains to the DJIA. It's the ultimate sign of how much people have just become sheep now. Hasn't TARP basically shown us that there is no such thing as insolvency now in the financial world? This false need for 24 hour news has also created the need for said news channels to just come up with absolute bullshit coincidental reasons for "the market" to do anything.

"Job numbers were low today so the market dipped a touch in the health care sector but retail growth reports are high so manufacturing is up"
Sound familiar? Utter nonsense.
Here's what they're really saying:
Carl just bought a bigger yacht than Lenny so Lenny pulled out about 4.8m in holdings that was enough to cause a blip in some sector which triggered nervous investors to dump that investment product to move to a "safer" product, typically at the hands of a hedge funder who is in control of billions of dollars making sure that he doesn't drop the fund 2% in one day.

My losses yesterday? $0.81
Diversification is good no?
 
Impressive. I'm down 3.5% since 6/30, so I'm right at the average. le sigh.

what's that 0.81 as a %? how many decimal points you gotta go to get there? ;)
 
We haven't seen panic selling. Yesterdays sell off was very orderly and smooth, just like today's has been so far. Yesterdays action in the energy sector looked like a leveraged energy sector hedge fund blew up to me.

There are plently of reasons for the markets to sell off. The US economy is crap, we have only shown growth the past year and half because of overseas demand. Now that overseas demand is at risk, the "recovery" we have seen here in the US is at risk. The Euro zone is a clusterfuck and China is slowing their economy to control inflation.

Basicallly the risk of recession has increased dramatically over the past month so the market should be selling off.

BTW....just had what appears to be an intra-day high voume reversal off 117 SPY. See if it holds and we get a short covering rally into the close as I imagine most traders will want to go into the weekend flat due to the headline risk out of Europe over the weekend.
 
holyfuck.jpg

Cheerleaders for catastrophe.
 
Headlines like that cause a panic. The market isn't crashing, it is re-pricing risk and the higher odds of a new GLOBAL recession and reduction in corporate earnings.

What is funny is that this price action is all S&P futures driven. Every chart on my screen looks almost exactly the same. Individual names don't matter, this action is all being caused by futures activity and leveraged ETF's.
 
I don't want to get into dick measuring of account sizes, let's just say that 3.5% loss would be significantly larger than $0.81. Not four figures though.

Then again, I'm invested in relatively low risk blue-chips that all have high yield dividends. I'm not looking to make my millions overnight, more like over a decade... I take an IPO gamble here and there and consider it to be nothing more than putting $100 on Red at the casino. Pandora was the last one and in hindsight I have no idea why I bought in other than "hey, I listen to Pandora", now I just click on the ads too...

p.s.
the catastrophe cheerleaders might as well make another headline
URGENT: Since last headline DJIA is now up 100+pts for the day and has recovered earlier selling
We apologize for any shitting of pants that may have occured

p.p.s
skimming their article on Iranian student waterfights, they just had to find the cutest girl they possibly could didn't they? Also, perhaps the students should be happy that the Mullahs are oppressive and not Fabulous amirite?

p.p.s.s.
Ok, lost a better chunk today. The biggest drop came from a stock that is paying a dividend 8/11 so I'm actually quite pleased about that.
 
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I lost right around the market drop yesterday. I just have my 401k type plan in one of those target retirement year funds (a 2040 target date) that is very aggressive initially and gets more conservative as you get closer to retirement.

So it's very highly invested in stocks currently. It did pretty well last year though (around 17% return), this year it's been mostly flat since market has been up and down lately.

I don't really pay much attention to it honestly as it's a long term investment and I don't have any real desire to retire early or anything anyway.
 
[quote name='nasum']The biggest drop came from a stock that is paying a dividend 8/11 so I'm actually quite pleased about that.[/QUOTE]

...color me naive, but why are you pleased about that? I understand that dividends are offered per share, not per value of the share...so there's not necessarily any effect there I can see. So why pleased?
 
say it's trading at $40 and you get $1 per share and you have ten shares. Your dividend (particularly if in a drip) will now buy you 1/4 of a share.
Same scenario at $30 per share means you've purchased 1/3 of a share in your drip.

compound interest through dividend for lack of a better description.

So, high prices all the time other than the dividend payment date so that your free money buys more shares.
 
The US has officially been downgraded from AAA to AA. This will cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and make loans more expensive for all Americans. Just freaking great.
 
On another note the Treasury department has reported a 2 trillion dollar mistake in the paper work that was sent to them by the S&P to explain why we are being downgraded. S&P has commented they did indeed fuck up, but have made no statement on if it will reverse their decision or not. Either way I am sure the market is going to freak the fuck out Monday...there goes my 401k. Just another example of how people are punished for being responsible.

Edit - And I agree with Krugman. People at the S&P have no right to judge or do shit after the mortgage crisis. It pisses me off that the same people we bailed out now are fucking the country over further.
 
Well, we didn't give anything to Standard and Poor, or Moody's. They're conspiring agents in the mortgage crisis because they're the orgs that rated CDOs triple-A when they were unmitigated bullshit of the highest order.

For them to have any power in rating anything is hubris beyond measure.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Well, we didn't give anything to Standard and Poor, or Moody's. They're conspiring agents in the mortgage crisis because they're the orgs that rated CDOs triple-A when they were unmitigated bullshit of the highest order.

For them to have any power in rating anything is hubris beyond measure.[/QUOTE]

Just misspoke in the last post. Thanks for explaining it though vs jumping down my throat, much appreciated.
 
I personally find this whole downgrade very funny. I think it is funny because we, as in the US government, jumped down the ratings agencies throat for their ratings of all the crap that failed a few years ago saying they were being to "backward looking" in their measurements and not putting enough emphasis on future risk and all that blah, blah, blah.

So since then they did revise their rating criteria and now they have used that criteria, which we pushed for, to downgrade the US credit rating......and now we complain.....again.
 
[quote name='BillyBob29']So since then they did revise their rating criteria and now they have used that criteria, which we pushed for, to downgrade the US credit rating......and now we complain.....again.[/QUOTE]

I'm more aghast at the multi trillion dollar mathematical error that S&P admitted to, only to blithely disregard the influence of when going forward with their downgrade.
 
Gibbon, when examining the reasons behind the fall of the Roman Empire came up with the following:

1. Focusing on the display of wealth through excessive consumption rather than building wealth.
2. Obsession with sex and perversions of sex.
3. A growing divide between the very rich and very poor.
4. Dependence on citizens to live off the state rather than being self-sufficient.

Looks a hell a lot like our situation at the moment. However, we are the fortunate ones who at least lived through the highwater mark of America's history. We will not live to see the inevitable collapse that is coming, that we graciously have left to future generations.
 
[quote name='dopa345']Gibbon, when examining the reasons behind the fall of the Roman Empire came up with the following:

1. Focusing on the display of wealth through excessive consumption rather than building wealth.
2. Obsession with sex and perversions of sex.
3. A growing divide between the very rich and very poor.
4. Dependence on citizens to live off the state rather than being self-sufficient.

Looks a hell a lot like our situation at the moment. However, we are the fortunate ones who at least lived through the highwater mark of America's history. We will not live to see the inevitable collapse that is coming, that we graciously have left to future generations.[/QUOTE]

You should not use we online. What you mean to say is that you old farts that ran things in to the ground got to enjoy your irresponsibility that ruined things for us young people.
 
[quote name='dopa345']Gibbon, when examining the reasons behind the fall of the Roman Empire came up with the following:

1. Focusing on the display of wealth through excessive consumption rather than building wealth.
2. Obsession with sex and perversions of sex.
3. A growing divide between the very rich and very poor.
4. Dependence on citizens to live off the state rather than being self-sufficient.

Looks a hell a lot like our situation at the moment. However, we are the fortunate ones who at least lived through the highwater mark of America's history. We will not live to see the inevitable collapse that is coming, that we graciously have left to future generations.[/QUOTE]

1,3,4 are vagaries that could apply to any society at any time.

3; well, that's true, but the culture of the US is rooted in the mythology of the free market, so that won't change until people pay attention.

Remember the time in 2011 when Republicans raised taxes? I do.
 
Heh:
[quote name='S&P']
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now
assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012,
remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority
of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise
revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key
macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade.[/QUOTE]
 
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