We agree that paying down debt is essential. R-money and the other two GOPers do not have a credible to plan to even begin doing so.

It sounds like you think that the 90s boom was normal. That a few factors being corrected, the US economy could grow like that forever. I say that is an unfounded belief.

All the growth that you hold is pent up like a watchspring presumes easy access to underpriced credit-money. The last 30 years of GDP growth was all debt. There is no watchspring. The basic GDP equation (C+I+G+[x-m]) holds that shifting expenditures between C or I or G doesn’t change the sum of the three. Extinguishing debt explicitly requires the sum to shrink.

By GDP measure, the economy must get smaller. And while GDP mandatorily shrinks, the debt leveraged against it does not. The Acid Test Ratio gets worse until debt cannot be rolled over and/or FedRes currency is no longer functional as money. There is no way out that doesn’t include a Great Repricing.

On “the end of time”, perhaps we are talking past each other. The upcoming Period of Violent Upheaval is part of a cycle. Simultaneously, more things will be open for rapid change than have been for a few generations. Society will endure. The question is of its form and the nature of its government. We either restore a pre-Blue Model system or jump to a different paradigm (open tyranny?).

Tens of millions are dependent on the Blue Model. To them it will feel like the end of times. I want them to Remember Obama, LBJ and FDR as they starve to death in the midst of history’s wealthiest economy.

Let me respond first to your final point. If you haven’t yet, I suggest reading Walter Russell Mead’s series on the failure of the Blue Social model. He makes a very convincing case for the Blue Social model as a large govt/regulatory format whose time has passed. To be in a transition, even the difficult and disruptive transition that we are now in, is not necessarily the same as the “end of time” (this hearkens back to my point about people reading a present circumstance as a linear trend).

Second, regarding “accounting tricks” we are not already bankrupt. First let me qualify what I say by pointing out that we MUST begin paying down our debt. That is an indisputable part of our return to financial health. Having said that, our economy is in a position where, like a watch spring, it has been wound as tightly as it can be wound. It is waiting, and I might add chomping at the bit, to break loose. When that happens we will see a burgeoning economy like none we could ever imagine. With regard to the natl debt, look at it this way; if someone makes $50k per year and has $50k in consumer debt, then they are hurting. If, however, they could overnight make that income jump to say $150k or $200k, then that $50k debt plays a lesser role. We are in the former circumstance ($50k income w/ $50k debt) because our economy is hobbled. When it breaks loose, just watch out. Even $14T in debt will pale against the potential size of our healthy GDP, but that will not happen so long as Obama is at the reins. Businesses know he’s a liar. They don’t trust him, and Obama’s administration has done everything it can to hobble the very economy that is the cure to our current problem. You are willing to allow him a second term to continue doing exactly that, to break bank; a second Obama term does nothing but GUARANTEE our loss.

I, OTH, want to see him defeated because that at least creates the POSSIBILITY that we can begin to return to some semblence of fiscal sanity and health. I repeat, even if you are correct and a President Romney or Gingrich does no better than Obama, we have nohing to lose, but if they do, outperform Obama then we have everything to gain. And keep in mind that Obama has set the performance bar very very low.

Finally, you choose to take as an insult my comment about unknown unknowns. IMO you do this because your assumption seems to be “T thinks he knows what these unknown unknowns are and he chides Foxmarks for not knowing herself/himself.” This is not the case. I refute your position not just because of the consequences I see arising from it, but because I fear even more those consequences that neither you nor I can conceive of. A change in administrations creates the possibility of avoiding the worst of them, whatever they may be. No slight or isnult was or is intended, but if you choose to take personal umbrage then there’s just not much I can do to change that.

You do go for the preferred listing of reasons when you repeat we have a fundamental disagreement. I say the country is already bankrupt. Accounting tricks have delayed the reckoning, but our governments’ Acid Test Ratio stinks. Either the FedGov will have to sell assets, or steal them via inflation. Obama’s particular policies are not the core problem and correcting them are not the solution. The value of everything needs adjustment, and there will be many losers in the Great Repricing.

I might say our fundamental disagreement is about timing, whether we are over the precipice. But I wonder if it goes deeper. People who talk about American exceptionalism these days are all from the same generation. I hold that generation is the one which destroyed American exceptionalism by replacing personal autonomy and limited government with industrial success and military prowess. Are we exceptional because the nation was conceived in equality of liberty, or because we can kick everybody’s ass?

First off, I’m sorry that you see my criticism as demeaning your intelligence. I can only draw my inferences from what your post here; that was certainly not intended.

Second, “The Crash” is not inevitable. People always see trend lines growing from current circumstances. If times are good they’ll continue getting better; it times are bad they’ll continue to get worse. It’s just lthe way ads for buying gold prolifierate just as the price/oz reaches historic highs.

Again, I fundamentally disagree with you. The cataclysm that you seem willing to suffer is frought with dangers that you don’t even realize that you’re unaware of. We might both agree that we are at the edge of a precipice. You seem willing to make the jump; I am not. The idea might be that we’re jumping into water, not ground, but water at 50 mph is very very hard–even if it doesn’t look like it is, and one only finds that out as one hits, not as one approaches.

Make no mistake about it, Obama will bankrupt this country, and he will cause personal bankruptcies for you and me. Take the current energy problems. Obama, himself, has admitted that energy prices will skyrocket under his direction, and he has refused to act in any way to bring gasoline prices down. This does two things; first, as we pay more for each gallon of gas, we have less money for other purposes. Second, since everything we need is transported by gasoline and diesel, the prices of necessities will rise exponentially. You will have less money in your pocket and also be forced to pay more for your necessities. Many more people will lose their jobs as the economy slows, and as more of us wind up on the dole, ther will be less private industry to pay the bill. This is a death spiral; its happening now but it’s still containable; Obama will accelerate this past the point of no return. This is what you seem willing to accept.

Bill O’Reilly is oftentimes a big blowhard, but his latest mantra is spot on; if Obama wins reelection, you will not recognize this country in four years. That is because a Republican congress aside, he will continue to exercise an end-run around legislation with regulatory tomfoolery just has he has demonstrated now.

Subsequently, a tipping point will be reached (that precipice I mentioned) our opportunities for recovering our exceptionalism will be somewhere between slim and none because the the road back will be very very difficult for a very very long time, if possible at all. I am in the final third of my own life, and I have no intention of spending my remaining years paying for Obama’s narcissim, ingnorance and mistakes.

IMO that difficulty is still manageable, but even if a Republican administration fails, the result will be no worse than a second Obama term—so what do we have to lose?

T: The crash is inevitable. Again, you demean my intellect by suggesting I “do not understand” what Obama represents. Romney represents the same thing, and makes a genuine Constitutional future very much less likely.

neo: Ah, I didn’t understand it was the “use of force” rhetoric that you objected to. My examples were voices commonly considered neocon that I hear regularly, and who are not MSM caricatures, but independent agents.

That one can, by use of force, create foreign democratic governments which abide by US preferences about human rights is the central neocon philosophic failure. It is purely Progressive in nature (and I love it when other factions call neocons “Trotskyites”. Our revolution is the noble revolution!). In Iraq and Afghanistan, the neocon faction just wants more troops, for a longer time, to get things right. It is no different than listening to democrats talking about the Great Society. Our only failure is a lack of commitment!

I’m not sure we can say Barry hasn’t encouraged certain outcomes. He has killed key people. He has tried to put on a different submissive public face, but do you really believe the CIA is not engaged in all kinds of nonsense across the globe?

If it isn’t already in your idea stack, the definition of “neocon” could use some adjustment after ten years attempted nation-building.

If the latter, of course there are examples that fit that definition. But it’s not the predominant point of view among neocons, and it is a caricature and misconception driven by the MSM and especially the left.

To be explicit: neocons are not “ruthless about the use of force.” I’m sure a few are, but force is not what the neocon philosophy is about, and it is a caricature to say otherwise. Plus, Obama has not for the most part made any attempt (with force or without it) to encourage certain outcomes in the countries in which he has advocated the overthrow of dictators—the desired outcomes of neocons being democracies that preserve human rights and liberty, as well as governments favorable to the US.

and here is where we diametrically disagree. You write “I am inclined to let the open Prog crash the government.” I suggest that you really do not understand what that truly means for our country. Beyond the hardship that would create, it will also bring us to a brink from whichj we never recover–then, only a real miracle would solve the problem, and those are, historically, in short supply.

Furthermore, I offer that we did not ge to this point in a single administration, I don’t expect anyone to produce a “miracle” and get us out of this in a single administration. I do think that any of the three (Santorum the least likely) have the ability to begin the process especially if armed with a more conservative congress than they, themselves, are.

Any label is a caricature. I have read most of your neocon material and appreciate that you don’t think the label fits your views perfectly. But nation-building has its roots in Progressive thought.

T: What you point out about the understanding the ends and pursuing them properly is I why I accepted Bush’s invasion of Iraq. (actually I say it was just a continuation/conclusion of the 1991 war) Turns out, though, that Bush was wrong because Saddam was a masterful liar. Now the neocon faction appears to be arguing itself into a belief that some new war is a “last resort”. Whether it is one of the GOPers or Obama, they will get willingly sucked into another war.

And it seems again that the caricature of “conservative” is inadequate. I am not “willing to give” Obama a second term. But seeing no Constitutional option among the “legit” candidates, I am inclined to let the open Prog crash the government instead of pretend a closet Progressive will perform a miracle.