Too late to stop US spending cuts

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Too late to stop US spending cuts

Published: 1 Mar 2013 at 21.07
Online news: World

WASHINGTON — Sweeping US government spending cuts totalling $85 billion begin taking effect on Friday, slicing deeply into military and other programmes in an unwanted move toward austerity that displays Washington's paralysing partisan divisions.

A White House spokesman said the cuts would be put into force as close to midnight (noon Saturday Thailand time) as possible because President Barack Obama was "ever hopeful" on a deal to avoid them.

Obama was meeting congressional leaders of both parties on Friday morning, but there were no expectations of a breakthrough.

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Worzel
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Discussion 12 : 02 Mar 2013 at 10.4512
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Disc 11 Pointman: Two answers, firstly to protect the sale of oil in US Dollars, ie the Petrodollar, the now de facto replacement for gold backed dollars, and secondly, by removing an otherwise stable and benign government and anticipating its replacement at the ballot box with the Musilm Brotherhood and thereby ensuring a hypothetical enemy to further support US military expense.

It's a combination of these, or either one subject to the outcome.
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pointman-1
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Discussion 11 : 02 Mar 2013 at 09.3511
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Disc 8, bkk-farang: Your post sort of reminds me of this friend of mine who is overly concerned about what goes on in foreign countries, but fails to see the problems in his country. Yesterday, I watched a U.S. Government official addressing the situation in Syria, and talking about spending millions of Dollars there. Why would a country over 16 Trillion Dollars in debt, be wanting to spend money in Syria, or spend money foolishly?
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bkk-farang
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Discussion 10 : 02 Mar 2013 at 09.2110
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According to Parkinson's Law the size of the bureaucracy is independent of size of the the organization. Parkinson's Law was published in 1955…
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pointman-1
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Discussion 9 : 02 Mar 2013 at 09.059
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Disc 5, Spiceman: From an economic stxandpoint of view, I would consider Thailand, to be much better off than the United States, or the EU. You're pretty much correct about the negatives regarding a democracy, i.e., over 40 million Americans on food-stamps along with too many welfare recipients. The United States, has a problem where there's not enough horses/private sector workers to pull the wagon. Since bureaucracies become expensive and over-regulated, the only solution appears to be, abolish, or reduce the government bureaucracy.
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bkk-farang
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Discussion 8 : 02 Mar 2013 at 08.288
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How about the US recalls all their soldiers from their wars and the rest of the world? I am sure that would save huge amounts of money.
Imagine a word where Americans would stay inside their borders and don’t try to improve the world American Style – wonderful!
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pointman-1
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Discussion 7 : 02 Mar 2013 at 07.297
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Disc 4, zydeco: You're correct. Adding government organizations such as Homeland Security and the continuos expansion of the federal government became so expensive, American taxpayers could no longer continue to support the bureaucracy. The problem is difficult to solve simply because, if the American Government had a budget surplus the bureaucracy would continue to become bigger and costlier. The problem relates to a runaway freight train with no solution to stop the train.
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upena
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Discussion 6 : 02 Mar 2013 at 07.036
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$85 Billion is a drop in the Trillion dollar bucket. If Obama would just stop spending....
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spiceman
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Discussion 5 : 02 Mar 2013 at 04.345
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"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." --Death by Democracy, Alexander Tytler (1747-1813)

Is that what in full swing in the US, the EU, and, beginning to happen to Thailand?
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zydeco
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Discussion 4 : 01 Mar 2013 at 22.064
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Discussion 3 Pointman-1 About that idea to start laying off Fed workers. Not a bad idea. I hope they begin with the IRS. Then Homeland Security. Then every domestic spy agency people are able to uncover. Until Americans begin to realize that individual and collective life is a constant struggle, the death spiral will continue. The entire country gives out too much largesse, to welfare recipients, national police agencies, fed bureaucrats, inspectors, teachers, and everyone else. The system cannot support itself anymore.
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pointman-1
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Discussion 3 : 01 Mar 2013 at 21.423
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The only possible way to bring down the U.S. Federal debt is to place everything under contract using far less the number of federal workers, or cut the present federal workfoce by 60%. Under present federal policy, it's almost impossible to stop government waste. Furthermore, once the federal workforce became unionized, the bureaucracy became too large and too powerful for anyone to control.
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Too late to stop US spending cuts | Bangkok Post: news