There is one tech problem I would like help with, if anyone has tips.  The top of each video is all weird-looking and then gets better rapidly.  I recorded them through Quicktime and uploaded them through the “Share” function.  Is there another way to do this that will prevent that problem?

It probably depends on the whole recording process, but based on the output, I’d suggest starting the recording early, recording a sound test, then editing the result and uploading the edited result.

This is assuming the odd behavior is exhibited on your original prior to upload, and is not an artifact of the upload process.

Most people didn’t like the idea of shutting down the government.  Just say that failing to raise the debt ceiling will shut down the government again.  Harp on the Republicans for trying to invoke double Jeopardy.  They already agreed to a budget and the budget they agreed to will exceed the available funds without raising the debt ceiling. 

The GOP bought the car, but suddenly they don’t want to pay on the note?  The Dems need to drill this point home.  Republicans ALREADY AGREED to spend more than the debt ceiling allows.  John Boehner signed off on this budget with all his GOP buddies.  This happened last month.  The debt ceiling is a technicality (abet a very important one).  But ballooning the national debt one more time was ALREADY DECIDED when the ‘10 budget deal got signed.

Yay video gamers!

Why don’t we just start saying that the vote is on whether or not to default on our loans?  Or to cease government spending entirely?

Hell, why not “Congress is going to vote on whether to kill the American and global economies. The Republicans want to kill it completely and reduce us all to barbarism. Democrats want to keep America alive and avoid destroying civilization.”

And for god’s sake, the greatest video game in history is Centipede. NOT UP FOR DEBATE!

(“smile”? What’s up with that? Smileys don’t work? Fie.)

Scott: Ha. Qix.

I like Zifnab’s version. The GOP wants a debate over whether to actually send out checks to pay for all the things that House republicans have already bought. Interesting factlet from tpm: the raising of the debt limit used to be an automatic thing that was rolled into the passage of a budget, but a previous generation of republicans separated the two precisely for the purpose of grandstanding.

And I’m with the “clean bill” thing because you don’t negotiate with terrorists. I think that agencies should already have started sending out notices with social security checks, government employee/contractor checks and so forth to GOP-represented districts saying “This may be the last check you receive for the foreseeable future. Your representative has announced his/her intention to vote to prevent the federal government from meeting its legal obligations, and if he/she succeeds, no further checks will be issued.”

Both the videos have this really weird look to them at the beginning.  It looks exactly like the “emboss” function in Photoshop.  Amanda is breaking out of concrete, in order to present her views.

The debt ceiling will get raised in exchange for trinkets, which will turn out to be not even that upon closer examination. A re-play of the government non-shutdown. Wall St. owns the GOP at the end of the day, and Wall St. wants the ceiling raised.

In the meantime, there will be a massive amount of hand-wringing, shouting, predictions of doom, and stupidity from both the MSM and the blogosphere.

Wake me when it’s over!

@paul, egad that would be awesome.  So it won’t happen.

Every American family takes on debt to balance their budget an increase future income.  They take credit to buy clothes for work to increase their ability to earn.  They take debt to take college courses and increase their ability to earn.  They take one debt to buy homes to store their stuff and improve their lives and increase what they earn.  They take on debt to buy cars so they can reach work further away.  They buy…

The basic fact is very few American families ‘live within their means’ without debt.

And most Americans buy houses worth more than their yearly income.  The debt of the US isn’t at that high of a rate to the GDP of the US.  (most homeowners take mortgages of 2x their income or more in the most recent bubble)

So yeah, it’s a stupid question, and another stupid assumption.

PS, I’d say the video issue is due to the upload not starting with a key frame.

The debt of the US isn’t at that high of a rate to the GDP of the US.

Not only that, we can print our own reserve currency. Another reason why wingnuts who compare our debt situation to the PIIGS are morons.

Deficits are a medium to long-term issue, not a short-term one.

As Badtux points out, bank lending in America is shrinking. The only thing preventing a deflationary event is borrowing and spending by the government.

The “optimistic” side of me says the money guys (gender chosen deliberately) backing the GOP know this, and will give the GOP their marching orders not to screw around on this, meaning Obama can tell them to go screw themselves if they try getting concessions for it.  The less optimistic side looks at Obama’s record and suggests he’ll fold like a cheap deckchair if pressed.

And the really pessimistic side suggests the current GOPpers are just stupid enough to run the US economy over the cliff based on their ideology.

say hello to my little friend…

It’s a bit like a penis, only much much smaller.  How cute.

Hello, xjudgmentz2009’s little friend.

The republicans aren’t going to allow for a default. They just act crazy to spook you and get concessions. How do I know?

Well Boehner asking the Street how close Congress could push to the debt limit deadline without wacking interest rates says is a pretty big tell:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wall-street-to-boehner-back-off-the-debt-ceiling/2011/04/12/AFZ5DoVD_blog.html

A default is not going to happen. They’re just blowing smoke up everyone’s ass.

In fact,  Obama oppossed raising the debt ceiling back during the Bush Presidency. So this is more politics as usual except Dems look at Repubs like they are kim jong il & Co. and figure bette be safe than sorry.

The raisng of the debt ceitling is assured. Obama should act as it is and give the repubs nothing.

As the employee of a MIC corp that does a lot of gov business, I can tell you that we are all well aware of the problem.  We actually have extensions, with work scheduled, that we have discussed how to delay until things get ironed out.  This does not mean, however, that the idiot libertarianesque and GOP people I work with (thankfully, who at least are a minority in my office, if only because, hey, MA is a dem state-mostly; company overall is a different story) are blaming the GOP members of the legislature.  It’s all Obama’s fault, don’t you know; just like the high cost of gas is (a recent facebook forward).

What Obama and the Dems should do, but wont, is use this to push for removing the tax breaks for the wealthy.  And I say this as someone who is part of a couple who has made it into “them” category (currently at more than $110K/year) at least twice in the last decade.

“Every American family takes on debt to balance their budget an increase future income.”

Yeah.  I mean, it isn’t that the federal budget isn’t that incomparable to a family budget so much as that “family budget” has turned into this weird platonic concept that has pretty much nothing to do with what actual families do.  I can’t think of too many people who, when faced with a choice between losing their job and taking on debt to fix their car in order to keep getting to work, are going to say “Take on debt? Fie upon you, sir, we must live within our means! I would prefer to lose my income rather than take out a loan in order to keep it.  Wolveriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines!”

Is it more desirable to save for something than to go into debt to pay for it? Sure, if only because it’s preferable not to pay more for something than you absolutely have to, and debt costs.  But it was a rare bird even back in the country’s rose-tinted yesteryears who could swing paying rent and saving money to buy a house free and clear without needing a mortgage, and most people are capable of looking at their lives and coming to the realization that some things are non-negotiable and a lot of things are worth taking on debt in order to save money in the long run.  These shouldn’t be foreign concepts when applied to governmental spending.

A few thoughts:

1) I don’t understand why the Dems didn’t take care of this during 2008-2010.  There is a lot of profound stupidity here.

2) The deficit will never go away, because no matter what happens, the Republicans will cut taxes to the rich until the deficit is large.  That is the Deficit Problem.  There is no solution, so it’s not worth bothering to try.

The debt of the US isn’t at that high of a rate to the GDP of the US.

Its about 80% plus, the highest since FDRs time. I don’t know at what point you trigger credit rating problems but we can’t be too far away. Clinton cut spendig and raised taxes on the theory that smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates. Clinton is the model democrat on the economy. Anything furhter left than Keynesianism makes the Teabaggers appear sane.

Now, Obama inherited an economy far worse than Clinton did (he actually inherted a recovery, we know now in retrospect). But the repubs already gave him a massive stimulus, plus we had QEII, and then tarp (which appears on track to deliver a profit to taxpayers).

Keynes is basically counter-cyclical. you spend during recsesions but you must contract during expansion, or else you blow up. I understand if you don’t want to do this right now, but we are awfully close to the time when it will become necessary.

Yeah.  I mean, it isn’t that the federal budget isn’t that incomparable to a family budget so much as that “family budget” has turned into this weird platonic concept that has pretty much nothing to do with what actual families do.

The average American family has $8,000-9,000 in credit card debt, plus Cthulu knows how much in home, auto and student loan debt.  Pretending debt is some horrible taboo for Americans is absurd on its face, especially after years of being told to use our homes like ATMs because their values will never go down.

Obama should call the GOP on this BS *and* link it to their craven subservience to Wall Street.  Also, too, I’d like a pony.

Poly Styrene ... RIP :(

If we default, the very first place any pain will be felt will be on Wall Street. No Streeter is going to let that happen, and FSM knows they’ve paid for their DC minions to prevent it. So the kabuki that’s being performed on the right needs to be publicly laughed at, and the Dems might even take a few Republican hostages of their own while they’re at it. (This of course will not happen. This is why my brick wall is pocked with tissue from my head.)

“Keynes is basically counter-cyclical. you spend during recsesions but you must contract during expansion, or else you blow up. I understand if you don’t want to do this right now, but we are awfully close to the time when it will become necessary.”

Yeah!  Who the hell cares if the functional unemployment rate is something like 20%, with massive numbers of people “underemployed” by only getting low-paying-and-often-temporary service jobs outside their preferred field instead of well-paying and stable jobs with retirement and medical benefits.  Everyone who isn’t in the top percentages of economic success is just a faceless rabble of moochers and leeches who are pulling down our Galtain Overlords with their incessant demands for food, clothing, shelter, education for their brats, trips to the emergency room for a minimal level of healthcare, and “Social Security” (which is really WELFARE) for when they think they’re too old to work.  “Oh, woe is me! I’m so old and my body is broken and I’m crippled and I’m in constant pain and I don’t know what decade this is anymore but I need to have a job until the day I die.  Boo hoo!”  Damn parasites! 

Fortunately, the wealthy are doing well again so the economy is definately back on track.  The Wall Street stimulus worked, even if the Main Street stimulus didn’t.  So it’s very important to stop this feeble economic recovery now, before jobs are created and wages rise.  Cut those upper income taxes (and raise taxes on everyone else), keep those tax loopholes in place, make those bonuses keep getting bigger and bigger as we layoff more and more workers and outsource everything to China.  Gotta keep those proles in their place so the Smartest People In The Room can fly high!...

Mighty Ponygirl, noooo! I was perfectly blissful in my ignorance!

@MikeEss:

In fact, one of the (many) problems was that the GOP did not have any contractionary policy (other than screwing the middle class) during the previous expansion. So we’ve moved all the curves over, and monetary policy really doesn’t have traction. But more than that, as you point out, unemployment has simply become a non-issue for them as aren’t unemployed or underemployed.

@ MikeEss,
I have to agree with Paul on this one and even admit that Manju actually said something that makes sense.  Specifically:

you spend during recsesions but you must contract during expansion, or else you blow up.

Helen: The keynesian rule is true, but MikeEss is also right. What’s not really recognized is that we’re not really in an expansion right now. We’re in a sucks-somewhat-less-than-full-depression state, but way below full employment, way below full utilization of industrial capacity, way below pre-crash or even pre-bubble levels of investment. So government spending isn’t about to blow anything up right now. The only thing that’s back to pre-crash levels is corporate profits, and that’s about corrupt accounting and insane power relationships between managements and labor.

I think raising the debt ceiling is unpopular because it reminds people of the bailouts in 2008.  It’s looks like taxpayers are once again rewarding people who fucked up.  And to be honest, while I understand why it needs to be raised because the alternative is heinous, I’m not looking forward to it being used to justify more tax cuts and military spending.

Paul, yes, I am well aware and agree.  We don’t want to cut spending now because we are not in an expansion.  Raising taxes, especially on those with strictly investment income at greater than $120/person/year, with tax breaks for any capital re-investment would be a really good move though.  It would raise tax income, spur capital expendatures (and therefore manufacturing ->jobs->manufacturing employeed people with money to spend on housing, food, services, othr goods->more manufacturing (->back one) and service employeed people with money to spend on….
When/If we have an expanding economy again, then we need to cut costs while maintaining taxes until we get our debt down.

Crissa @11

Yes, but you are forgetting the stupid factor.

Debt is a scary word. Debt means things are dire and you’re probably losing the house. Getting credit is just that, getting credit. Sure, you are going into debt, but that’s on the abstract level. On the word-response level, that’s part of balancing the budget. This naturally doesn’t apply to government because they are not talking about “getting credit” which is benign and sensible, but are “going more into debt” which is scary and worrisome.

In our current America, the words used seem to matter far more than any actual concept. Mainly, because we have no working mass media infrastructure to explain concepts in easy to understand ways for the layperson who hasn’t spent their time mastering in-depth understanding of those concepts.

Worse, still, we do have an infrastructure that purports to do that, but in service to their paymasters and the need to “be competitive for ratings”, they are perfectly willing to pass along scary sounding misinformation in the worst possible way thus misinforming those counting on it to make it make sense.