It's an interesting question. I would argue that it isn't about the U.S. government's stability, but more about the confidence that you can use a dollar to buy x. And I don't think its a binary decision like the dollar will ultimately not be able to purchase x. Instead it will be how many dollars it takes to buy x and if the number of dollars increases rapidly, you get a sudden erosion of confidence.
It seems like a lot of this heavy lifting is left to api / backend implementors and is not explicitly addressed. I don't think that is a short-coming of the module but perhaps some additional documentation on best practices could be helpful.
@pingburg @filearts You are right, unique account validation and error handling belong to the server. What Satellizer can do is catch an error through the $auth.authenticate().catch() promise and display it to the user. I will definitely update the documention very soon. The README of https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter
could fit on a screen when I first posted it on Hacker News earlier this year; it is now 1300+ lines long.
2013
A = Debt is around: $17.5 trillion
B = Debt Service: $416 billion
C = Average Rate: 2.38% ($416 billion / $17.5 trillion)
D = U.S. Tax Revenue: +/- $2.8 Trillion
Things won't get interesting until B approaches D.
So one way of looking at is if everything remained constant (which it won't) you'd need 15% interest rates on the current debt for debt service to approach tax revenue. If interest rates stay the same you could increase the debt to $128 trillion.
"Things won't get interesting until B approaches D."
I'd say things would get pretty interesting well before that point. B=D is just the point at which a default is inevitable (unless much higher tax revenue is achievable without causing other problems).
But the problem is that the interest rates are so low now that large increases are not outlandish. 7 years ago, the rate was more than double what it is now. Looking at the graph in the article, in the 80's it was over 10%, more than 4X the current rate (which would imply 1.6 trillion in debt service).
It seems like we're making a big bet that interest rates are down permanently. That may be true, but it seems like a fragile assumption to me.
There is no reason for the government to default when B=D. (If you disagree, please take a deep breath and think through the mechanics of exactly how the US federal government could be forced into default.)
In reality, B=D is likely to balance itself out again. This becomes apparent once you think through where the interest payments go.
If they are reinvested in government bonds, nothing happens. If they are reinvested in other financial assets, the general interest rate decreases, which will also pull down the interest rate on government bonds (reducing B). And if the interest payments end up with people who spend them on goods, well, that grows the economy, which increases D.
I agree that it will happen before B equals D but no one knows the tipping point ratio. In theory, a government can always argue right up to that point that, "we'll grow our way out of this."
There is a reason why they are at historic lows-- it is the decision of market participants. Your concern is essentially that market participants will somehow do a complete 180, for no stated reason.
"Your concern is essentially that market participants will somehow do a complete 180, for no stated reason."
If market participants demand a higher interest rate, I wouldn't call that a "complete 180".
Regardless, change is the only constant, as they say. Markets move. Behavior changes in response to the environment. If we really are supposed to be a risk-free place to loan money, then I would think we'd be a little more resilient to rising interest rates, which happen fairly often historically.
> The fact that interest rates on Treasury bonds remain so low, despite our debt levels and despite certain political figures repeatedly attempting to force the US Government to default on that debt, is prima facie refutation of the idea that no one in the market actually thinks US debt levels pose a major macroeconomic problem in the short to medium term.
With respect, I don't think it's accurate that the fact that bond rates remain low correlates to evidence that there's no major macroeconomic problem. Just take a look at the Federal Reserve's balance sheet that was relatively stable for many years has quadrupled in 5 years.
FWIW I would think that how a weapon _looks_ matters less than how it performs. If it shoots and injures/kills it doesn't matter to me if it's bright pink with rainbows and unicorns all over—it's still a perfectly valid weapon.
Looking like a toy could even serve as a useful form of camouflage.
Finally I would say that the fidelity of 3d printers is going up and the price is coming down. I would imagine that they won't look like they were sold at Toys-R-Us for much longer.
> I would think that how a weapon _looks_ matters less than how it performs.
Said no one who has been held up at knife point.
Put another way if someone waved a gun in your face and threatened you, would you need to see a tight grouping at 50 yards before you felt intimidated? Or would the mere potential for violence be enough to raise your anxiety level?
I'd like to see what the projected ongoing costs are for enrollees that continue in the system for the next year. Surely, the cost of maintaining an enrollee is substantially lower?
>> I still want to know what happened to the other forty million uninsured.
Forty million? It was estimated at 23 million. Here is the breakdown of uninsured from Wikipedia:
Illegal immigrants, estimated at around 8 million—or roughly a third of the 23 million projection—will be ineligible for insurance subsidies and Medicaid.[121]
[126] They will also be exempt from the health insurance mandate but will remain eligible for emergency services under provisions in the 1986 Emergency Medical
Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
Citizens not enrolled in Medicaid despite being eligible.[127]
Citizens not otherwise covered and opting to pay the annual penalty instead of purchasing insurance, mostly younger and single Americans.[127]
Citizens whose insurance coverage would cost more than 8% of household income and are exempt from paying the annual penalty.[127]
Citizens who live in states that opt out of the Medicaid expansion and who qualify for neither existing Medicaid coverage nor subsidized coverage through the states' new insurance exchanges.[125]
A lot of them are being covered by their employers due to increased requirements there, and a lot of them are being covered by Medicaid because of widened eligibility there. I have no idea how close they all add up to cover everybody, but you have to look beyond the insurance exchanges to see how well the law is doing in covering the uninsured.
I think the underlying mechanism here is a centralized banking system in all three countries. Without getting into the religious discussion of whether a central bank is "right or "wrong", I would suggest that any system that relies on a small group of unelected humans making decisions on the supply of the underlying medium of exchange is imperfect and prone to favoring one group over another for reasons that are not positive for everyone.
In other words...we all agree that price fixing leads to either shortages or surpluses..but we all agree that fixing the price of money in a central bank is the right way to go. And we are not able to see the contradiction therein.
In the end it's a question of alternative mechanisms. Either we use the current system or we go with a "backed" medium of exchange. The "backed" version suffers from elasticity (but that may or may not be a good thing). So the issue becomes what are some other alternatives that aren't just derivative of the first two?
I think the article can be summarized by this sentence: "When students preferred screen reading, they learned less when required to read from paper, and vice versa."
I'm pretty sure this is all just a matter of personal preference.
