Posted on Oct 14, 2015
Can we afford all the free stuff the Democrats promised last night?
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They want free college, no guns, no banks and open borders for illegal immigrants. Who wants to pay for all this free stuff? By the way, we have to raise our debt ceiling again to keep from defaulting on our debt. So much for lowering the deficit.
Posted in these groups: 
Politics
Election 2016
Politics Election 2016
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 13
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Funny how these posts seem lifted off the Fox News Facebook page, GOP sycophantic comments and all.
"Them liberalz are giving all those illegals our jobs and money and food and free everything so we're bankrupt now and we needs a wall to keep them out!"
Time for the inevitable patting each other on the back by repeating gross over-simplications and disingenuous arguments that have a tenuous connection to reality at best.
Going to agree with Sgt. Brookins' comment, this meme certainly embodies the Straw Man fallacy. Make up a non-existent argument to represent your perceived opponents so you have something easy to attack.
So to address those issues:
1. No one is promising illegal immigrants free college. <citation needed>
2. Gun control debates are empty rhetoric, trying to disarm 320 million people of their 300 million firearms that are heavily connected to our cultural heritage isn't happening overnight, if even in our lifetimes. We've heard that as a scare tactic since the 80s/90s by the NRA, yet gun carry permit laws are the most liberal yet, and the number of guns in the country is at an all time high (also firearm homicides as well as violent crime have been dropping since the 1970s). TL;DR - The "They're coming to steal our guns and liberty!" argument is pretty ignorant.
3. No banks...? Last I checked the big 4 US banks had basically overtaken the big 4 Chinese banks in terms of market capitalization. And Hillary's top 6 campaign donors include 4 large financial institutions (JP Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley). Not sure where you were going with that, but banks are not going away and no one said they would be.
4. Open borders for illegal immigrants? I saw some criticism of Obama's deportation policies as being too harsh and calls for immigration reform. Feel free to cite where someone "last night promised open borders for illegal immigrants." (Fun fact: since 2013, China and India have been the largest sources of immigrants, not Mexico).
5. We're raising our debt ceiling because our economy is growing. Our total debt to GDP ratio is on par with Germany and Canada's, and about half of the UK's and Japan's. China's on the other hand has quadrupled in 7 years ($7 trillion in 2007 to $28 trillion in 2014) and is increasing at a rapid rate; officially they've reached about the same ratio (debt compared to economy size) as ours, with no hope of slowing down (fixed investment is making a larger and larger chunk of their GDP as economic growth slows) anytime soon. And that's not getting into the trillions in non-performing loans and shadow banking that's in the "grey" economy and state run asset management companies that are used to get bad debt off the books and out of sight for now. Keeping a government debt to gdp ratio of around 100% (which is where we are at now) is easily sustainable, Japan has managed levels over 200% for years now and the UK has managed levels around there in the past as well. Selling government debt at bare minimum interest rates (like we have been doing) that gives us liquidity and a higher rate of return is a great deal. Sell bonds to China that pay 2% interest, and get 5% returns on spending the money they gave us. Sucks for them.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/images/EMRG-ChinaBankingSystem-07292011.gif (This is a couple of years old, China's ratio is closer to 280% now, not 159%).
So to conclude, the Democrats in the debate didn't "promise all this free stuff we can't afford."
And now to inevitably get flamed for daring to disagree with the common argument.
Full disclosure: I'm not a democrat and never have voted for one. Just tired of ignorant political opinions that tend to clog up the military community while being constantly repeated no matter how far from the truth they are.
"Them liberalz are giving all those illegals our jobs and money and food and free everything so we're bankrupt now and we needs a wall to keep them out!"
Time for the inevitable patting each other on the back by repeating gross over-simplications and disingenuous arguments that have a tenuous connection to reality at best.
Going to agree with Sgt. Brookins' comment, this meme certainly embodies the Straw Man fallacy. Make up a non-existent argument to represent your perceived opponents so you have something easy to attack.
So to address those issues:
1. No one is promising illegal immigrants free college. <citation needed>
2. Gun control debates are empty rhetoric, trying to disarm 320 million people of their 300 million firearms that are heavily connected to our cultural heritage isn't happening overnight, if even in our lifetimes. We've heard that as a scare tactic since the 80s/90s by the NRA, yet gun carry permit laws are the most liberal yet, and the number of guns in the country is at an all time high (also firearm homicides as well as violent crime have been dropping since the 1970s). TL;DR - The "They're coming to steal our guns and liberty!" argument is pretty ignorant.
3. No banks...? Last I checked the big 4 US banks had basically overtaken the big 4 Chinese banks in terms of market capitalization. And Hillary's top 6 campaign donors include 4 large financial institutions (JP Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley). Not sure where you were going with that, but banks are not going away and no one said they would be.
4. Open borders for illegal immigrants? I saw some criticism of Obama's deportation policies as being too harsh and calls for immigration reform. Feel free to cite where someone "last night promised open borders for illegal immigrants." (Fun fact: since 2013, China and India have been the largest sources of immigrants, not Mexico).
5. We're raising our debt ceiling because our economy is growing. Our total debt to GDP ratio is on par with Germany and Canada's, and about half of the UK's and Japan's. China's on the other hand has quadrupled in 7 years ($7 trillion in 2007 to $28 trillion in 2014) and is increasing at a rapid rate; officially they've reached about the same ratio (debt compared to economy size) as ours, with no hope of slowing down (fixed investment is making a larger and larger chunk of their GDP as economic growth slows) anytime soon. And that's not getting into the trillions in non-performing loans and shadow banking that's in the "grey" economy and state run asset management companies that are used to get bad debt off the books and out of sight for now. Keeping a government debt to gdp ratio of around 100% (which is where we are at now) is easily sustainable, Japan has managed levels over 200% for years now and the UK has managed levels around there in the past as well. Selling government debt at bare minimum interest rates (like we have been doing) that gives us liquidity and a higher rate of return is a great deal. Sell bonds to China that pay 2% interest, and get 5% returns on spending the money they gave us. Sucks for them.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/images/EMRG-ChinaBankingSystem-07292011.gif (This is a couple of years old, China's ratio is closer to 280% now, not 159%).
So to conclude, the Democrats in the debate didn't "promise all this free stuff we can't afford."
And now to inevitably get flamed for daring to disagree with the common argument.
Full disclosure: I'm not a democrat and never have voted for one. Just tired of ignorant political opinions that tend to clog up the military community while being constantly repeated no matter how far from the truth they are.
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SSG Warren Swan
CPT I like the way you made your argument. I'm not for either side, but this was very well articulated and presented.
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We paid for a whole war off money we didn't have, so why not? Sarcasm folks.
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SSG Warren Swan
LTC (Join to see) - How much does being able to bullshit pay? I might be interested lol
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SSG Warren Swan
SSG John Thornton - I agree with you, but to some Iraq was the right call. I firmly believe the Stan was, but I question the invasion of Iraq, and the data that was used to justify it. I know the US would be in a much better place finically had we not gone to either, but the Stan was a requirement in my eyes; no way out. The problem is that it's turning into another Vietnam with no real way out to claim victory.
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SSG Warren Swan
SSG John Thornton - But that's exactly what we did in Iraq. And in the Stan, to me, it's not feasible to have a long term presence there. We have "advisors" there now and I was one before advising the ABP. Afghanistan is going to have to man up eventually and to me eventually is now. The Afghan government is going to have to hold its leaders of various branches accountable for their actions with the notion America IS going to leave one day. We had RIDICIOULS attrition rates with the ABP after training. Not from battle; just folks leaving and selling their gear. Should we stay around too long, all we're doing is feeding into another corrupt regime like we are in Iraq, with the only losers being us. Give them a chance to fail before we keep propping up the dead weight.
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You're aware that nothing in your image is true? It's an absolute lie. You shouldn't frequent websites that post this garbage and you shouldn't converse with anyone who's dumb enough to think this is accurate. I don't mean to sound harsh, but we have the most powerful tool in the history of the known universe at our finger tips and this bullshit is what someone posts.
You don't understand what the debt ceiling is or what it's actually used for. We don't borrow money for the sake of borrowing money. A basic Econ 201 class will explain how our monetary system works. Basic tenet of Econ 201: Borrowing creates wealth.
You don't understand what the debt ceiling is or what it's actually used for. We don't borrow money for the sake of borrowing money. A basic Econ 201 class will explain how our monetary system works. Basic tenet of Econ 201: Borrowing creates wealth.
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CPT (Join to see)
"Borrowing creates wealth."
Caveat to that: Borrowing creates wealth if what it's used for has a higher ROI than the borrowing costs. If I borrow at 3% and get 8% from investing it in the stock market, I've created wealth. Or build a toll bridge that gives me a 120% back on my initial investment. If you borrow and invest in something that doesn't repay me, I've squandered wealth. Reference China's "Ghost Cities" when infrastructure investment doesn't bring a return to make it worthwhile.
Otherwise, pretty spot on. Cheers!
Caveat to that: Borrowing creates wealth if what it's used for has a higher ROI than the borrowing costs. If I borrow at 3% and get 8% from investing it in the stock market, I've created wealth. Or build a toll bridge that gives me a 120% back on my initial investment. If you borrow and invest in something that doesn't repay me, I've squandered wealth. Reference China's "Ghost Cities" when infrastructure investment doesn't bring a return to make it worthwhile.
Otherwise, pretty spot on. Cheers!
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SPC Nathan Freeman
Borrowing only creates wealth if invested properly... not given away to someone with an entitlement mentality. SGT Curtis Earl CPT (Join to see)
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MCPO Roger Collins
Borrowing creates wealth, TEMPORARILY, that is until the borrowing is repaid or we have another meltdown. We should really be wealthy as a nation, given all the deficits, National debt, state pension debt and unfunded mandates. Time to review the National Debt Clock.
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