I sure wish someone would say that to Paul Ryan when he says shit like this:
MILWAUKEE — U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan warned in a speech Monday that the nation was headed for a debt crisis, its finances at a critical juncture.
“We’re coming into what I would call a tipping point,” he said. “The more concerning tipping point is a cultural one, where we have more takers than makers in America.”
Or this:
We face a crushing burden of debt. The debt will soon eclipse our entire economy, and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead.
The next generation will inherit a stagnant economy and a diminished country.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit! Oh, and also bullshit!
This is ridiculous, of course, because we can always roll over previous debt and pay interest on it as it comes due. In fact, during the past 11 years as Ben Strubel shows, we’ve rolled over $437 Trillions in debt. And as Mike Norman says,we’ve rolled over $32 Trillions thus far in Fiscal 2012 alone.
We’ll always be able to roll over our public debt if that’s what we choose to do because a debt instrument is the functional equivalent of a savings account, and frequently those who hold USD including foreign nations have the effective choice of keeping their USD in a reserve account or buying a debt instrument. They’d rather buy the debt instruments because they earn interest. However, low the rate of interest is, it’s better than the rate they’ll get if they keep their USD in their reserve account, unless the Fed decides to pay Interest-On-Reserves (IOR).
Can our national debt increase indefinitely? The short answer is: yes it can. The reason is that a Government like the United States with a fiat non-convertible currency, a floating exchange rate, and no debts in any other nation”s currency, has no solvency risk because it can always create money to pay its obligations. Its debt instruments therefore are nearly risk-free. They’re a safe harbor for investors who’d rather earn a return on the USD they hold, then content themselves with keeping it in a reserve account, that typically earns no interest.
Paul Ryan is a professional liar. He’s very good at it, though more and more it’s clear that he’s not wearing any clothes. If you’re tired of this kind of Republican F.U.D., give generously to Rob Zerban’s campaign against Ryan. Give until it hurts.
Since the time of the affable but senile Gipper, the Republicans have had a deliberate policy of racking up debt so as to claim financial crisis as an excuse for destroying the social safety net. Bush II was especially successful at this by fighting two wars with borrowed money while cutting taxes for the 1%. What a bonanza, war-profiteering and tax cuts at the same time! It doesn’t get much better than that for the stinking-rich.
This deliberate act of bankrupting the peoples’ government during wartime is very close to an act of treason. In fact, I’ll say it. Paul Ryan is nothing more than an unpatriotic grifter and a lying sociopath. He is a clear and present danger to freedom and democracy.
Personally I think he should be moved from Congress and into a cage in Guantanamo, along with his collection of the works of Ayn Rand, where he could work on his tan while lecturing scorpions on shared sacrifice.
Classy site you have here. Posting the worst picture of a politician while cussing to argue your point. One of these times, someone will sue the site’s owner for the careless posts of its contributors.
Cussing? Aaron…how droll.
Aaron, what SPECIFICALLY about Phil’s post is actionable? I’d love to hear you explain, given your extensive legal background, how Phil posting an unflattering photo of Rep. Paul Ryan along with Phil’s opinion is actionable.
Go ahead, explain away!
I’ve seen the same photo of Ryan countless times, and haven’t heard a peep about lawsuits over it. The only imaginable legal case that could be made would be if the photo was doctored in some fashion. If Ryan believes that’s the case, he sure hasn’t said so in public!
Thanks for making my point.
For what it’s worth, I think Zach had done a pretty good job with this site. I personally think it’s the only worthwhile liberal site to read, and I know a lot of moderates and conservatives who share my opinion. It’s a worthwhile site because there are a few good writers (Ed and sometimes Zach) here that write with a moderate partisan tone and tend to be more factually accurate than other sites. But there are a few here like Scarr who is tanking the site’s reputation and will eventually get a Zach into legal trouble. It’s not Scarr’s butt that’s on the line either.
I tried reading and commenting on the most well-known conservative blogs, but most of them banned me. Moderate tone, reliance on facts, and lack of name-calling got me nowhere. Can’t explain that!
I too have been banned countless times for being too reasonable to GOPs. I do have one (not political, but full of political talk) forum where the owner/operator is highly disciplined about not taking sides, and diligent about bringing First Amendment style free speech to his private forum, although he has no legal obligation to do so. After 20 years on the WWW, I have exactly one website that’s been unwaveringly fair and open.
Where specifically have i been factually inaccurate? Point to one place in this post that meets this criteria. I’ll wait…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And if you cannot show me the same respect you show Zach and Ed by using my name properly, I will ensure you are banned and blacklisted. This is your only warning.
holy cuss word…I think you just ruined my career!
This and this are worth checking out.
Snicker…
I think he’s trolling for readers.
Do what you need to do. You’re stuff is actually worse than Liebenthal’s, which is quite the accomplishment.
And yet you continue to generate content-free responses to what I write… How special!
BTW, I’m still waiting for any evidence of factual error in what I wrote above.
Charles Pierce gets to the black heart of Paul Ryan:
Special…
Why does the party of tort reform perpetually come in here and threaten to sue????
What exactly has anyone written that is worthy of being sued?
I know paulie is the boy king but a bad picture of him is hardly actionable. yet anyway.
Being lectured about manners by Aaron is like attending a Weight Watcher’s seminar run by Rush Limbaugh.
I would be offended, but I have no idea who you are.
I thought Paul Ryan was supposed to be the brains of the GOP. ” More takers than makers” What does that mean? Is he channeling Johnny Cochrane of OJ Simpson fame? ” If the budget don’t fit, you must Medicare quit?”
Maybe Mr. Rodriguez could focus less on the alleged libelousness of various Blogging Blue contributors and a bit more on wonderboy Ryans meaning. Please interpret, Mr. Rodriguez. A lot of us don’t speak in Cochranesque rhyme.
I’m pretty sure that Cantor is supposed to be the brains, Ryan the pretty boy, Walsh the bully, McConnell the straw man, Boehner the cowardly lion.
Christine O’Donnell was supposed to play the part of the witch, and Dick Cheney finally got his heart…
I didn’t threaten to sue. I’m not the type. But blog owners should always have that in mind when posting stuff on the web – especially if they give posting license to contributors. Like I said before, I like what Zach has done with the place. He generates a lot of content, but the drawback with a lot of content is that he needs to check who the content providers are and their general level of quality. Cussing and posting the worst images they can find of a politician is generally reserved for the lower quality blogs. Not many people will disagree with that. How many people do you think will be turned off by posts with cussing? How many real journalists do it?
When you criticized cussing and name-calling on Wisconsin’s right-wing blogs, what was the response from the blog owners and blog commenters?
If I were going to use a “worst image” of the zombie-eyed granny killer, I’d use this one, this one, or maybe this one.
There is a cottage industry for making funny pictures of the zombie-eyed granny killer.
I don’t think you understand the depth of antagonism the zombie-eyed granny killer engenders in people.
Why am I not surprised?
Aaron, the last time I checked, we’re not trying to be real journalists here (or at least I’m not). I’m biased as hell, and I’m not trying to hide it.
And we’ve gone from you opining in your first comment that I’m going to get sued one of these days to now just criticizing the quality of the content here. Personally, I’d argue you’re hardly one to criticize the quality of content here, considering the content of your site.
“more takers than makers” sounds like yet another empty slogan dreamed up by the Authoritarian Sloganeering Machine. Expect to see it used all Summer in a vain attempt to self-identify the GOP as the party of “makers” and imply that everybody else is a “taker”. Standard Operating Procedure for the post-1984 propaganda industry.
“One of these times, someone will sue the site’s owner for the careless posts of its contributors.”
What could anyone possibly get sued for on here is the question?
Thanks, Graham, but I really want to hear from noted blog critic and prominent lay legal expert Aaron Rodriguez. Surely he can tell us precisely what the silly little rhyme truly means.
John,
I am unfamiliar with conservative bloggers that cuss in their posts; but if I visited their blog, I would tell them the same thing.
Jed over at Boots ‘n Sabers recently repeated the ‘F’ word in a comment with great zeal. He was trying to make the point that if you don’t like the language there, you should get your own blog and run it the way you like.
BadgerBlogger is another spot where you can get your language and ad-hominem undies in a bundle, if you were looking for that kind of excitement.
Besides when you watch a full length video of Ryan,
http://bloggingblue.com/2011/09/12/this-is-what-contempt-looks-like/
You see that picture is quite flattering
I ran a religious and political debate site for about 5 years. After the first 6 months, it became clear that we had to institute rules of conduct – not to chill the discussion, but to make the place attractive for prospective participants. One of the most basic rules was prohibiting offensive language and ad hominem attacks.
I would imagine the same principles of marketing would apply to blogs – if the owner is interested in growing the site to something really big someday. To do that, some contributors may need to be reigned it a bit. Most people browsing blogs, who are not the regulars, are browsing blogs because they are looking for useful information that doesn’t sound like a hack wrote it – something that sounds like it was researched, that sources were checked, that calls were placed, or other things that small or big time journalists do to make sure their papers are not held liable. Cussing is certainly an effective way to ensure visitors won’t return. Blogging blue is a brand name. That’s something that ought to be remembered.
Great. I suggest you return there post haste.
that wasn’t called for.
Yes, yes it was.
Aaron, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, we’re not lacking for prospective participants here, so while I appreciate your concern, I don’t share it.
However, if you’d like some tips on how to build an audience for your site, I’d be happy to give you some pointers.
Oh, SNAP!
I am always astounded how the current Republican party defines “makers” and “takers”. To Paul Ryan a man or woman who worked for 40 years as a public groundskeeper, paying into social security and earning a small pension is a “taker” after all that time of contributing to the common good by working his or her ass off while some rich guy who sells sub prime mortgages under false pretenses and then packages them so Goldman Sachs can make billions betting against poor people owning homes is a “maker”. How do these people win elections?
Come now! Job creators don’t use the roads! They don’t benefit from anything that the other makers have contributed to society! This is all about hierarchy. Who is better? You down below better show some respect, and accept your pudding.
Back to the topic, if we regulated the banks again and required some x-% reserves to back financial “investment,” instruments for them, in order to be able to get free money from the Federal Reserve trough (taxpayers) nationalized health care and regulated profits of health insurers and providers (the way that public service utilities are regulated, being necessary to general welfare and national security) we would be on the way to stabilizing the perceived adverse outcomes direly and erroneously predicted by Ryan and his fellow disaster capitalists.
Off Topic: Looked at those Ryan pictures, Phil, and really need to get a close up of the latest secret society round lapel pin that is not an American flag. Looks pretty un-American to me. Is that a NWO globalization pin, maybe a circular logic award pin. Who knows?
Just to be crystal clear, Zach and I were threatened with a lawsuit FOR NO GOOD REASON. The person making the threats had NO LEGAL STANDING. And he did not go after others who posted the exact same column. It was a smear campaign against myself and Zach, plain and simple.
Our attorney said the whole thing was nonsense.
So please drop the whole “lawsuit” talk. It’s utterly without merit and completely unfair. And I will NOT be entertaining responses about the incident. The case is closed.
Thank you,
Lisa
And also this line, “But there are a few here like Scarr who is tanking the site’s reputation and will eventually get a Zach into legal trouble. It’s not Scarr’s butt that’s on the line either.”
Lisa,
I wasn’t referring to your case, although it did get me thinking about the liability of blogs in general – including my own. I think as blogs become more mainstay as a choice for news, the threats of lawsuits will become more likely. All the more reason to be cautious about what is posted.
Aaron, I wanted to make that point after reading this part of your post:
“I would imagine the same principles of marketing would apply to blogs – if the owner is interested in growing the site to something really big someday. To do that, some contributors may need to be reigned it a bit. Most people browsing blogs, who are not the regulars, are browsing blogs because they are looking for useful information that doesn’t sound like a hack wrote it – something that sounds like it was researched, that sources were checked, that calls were placed, or other things that small or big time journalists do to make sure their papers are not held liable.”
What you write is true; I also want to make clear that before people make threats or question the credibility of a site, they should have all of their facts straight. That is just as important.