Krugman: This is not a crisis. It’s not even a picture of a crisis.

[cthulu2016]

The new CBO long-term budget projections are out, and while they’re not good, they don’t show crisis levels of debt even looking out a quarter-century.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/this-is-not-a-crisis/

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. It also looks like Krugman's proposition about much greater Govt.

stimulus is a good course of action. The Japanese abandoned austerity in favor of massive stimulus and it appears to be working in their country.

[MindMover]

2. Not even close to a crisis ....BUT .....

the fat greedy bastardos that have an extremely firm grip on this country's finances are force feeding a crisis mode to a very ignorant but self serving public ... in other words those tea baggers who long ago zipped there pockets shut for fear they were going to spend one nickel on an undeserving poor soul have concluded that screaming debt crisis at the top of there ignorant lungs will somehow keep that nickel in there pocket .... guess again you greedy MFs....

[n2doc]

3. As I noted in another thread, trying to make projections 25 years out is fools work

We can't even project out 10 years. Would anyone have predicted, in 2000, that we would have trillion dollar deficits in 2010? Or back in 1980, that there would be a surplus in 2000?

This is just going to be used to try and cut social programs. Never Military programs. And certainly not to raise taxes on the 1% or corporations.

[ctsnowman]

4. Nailed it.

[7962]

5. If its good enough for climate change, why not debt increase?

Seriously, EVERY government program starts out with "..cost X over 10 yrs". And it ends up being at least 3X instead. Why shouldnt we believe we're going under in the future?
All of the pols only care about re-election and will do nothing to stop the downward spiral.

[n2doc]

7. Because governments can make radical changes

Like war, or massive tax breaks, or even tax increases. And the underlying economy also makes huge changes. For example, if the economy were to grow at 3 % over the next decade, the issue of social security 'insolvency' would be moved back to the end of the century. Without any other policy changes.

Climate change estimates recognize that there are big year-to-year differences that can't be modeled. And even their models are run with several assumptions of how CO2 inputs will change, yielding very different warming curves. Because we don't know if or when the world will pull its collective head out of its collective ass and start to really take the problem seriously. It will take much more than solar farms in Germany.

You might look at the history of government funding. Many programs have seen effective cuts. Only the military, domestic spying/security, and the Big entitlement programs have seen increases. No one in DC seems to want to cut the military or spying. But a program like ARPA-E, which funds energy research, is slated for an 80% cut because the repubs don't like it.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Add Intragovernmental debt to the picture.

Remember, we owe Social Security about 2.8tn last I looked.

Al Gore was right about that fucking lock box, and... guilty. I shrugged it off as not important too. Shame on me.

[7962]

9. Many here wont agree with you on that.

Randi Rhodes has been saying for years that there is no SS problem. She doesnt get it either. The problem all started back in the late 60s when congress decided they could "borrow" SS funds.
Thats why ever since I was about 25 I started planning for a retirement without SS just in case. I'll be 65 in 13 yrs, we'll see.

[SunSeeker]

8. K & R

[thesquanderer]

10. That chart doesn't make Obama's first term look good (n/t)