Congress passes a budget. The administration just proposes one.

I understand that. They usually have their allies in congress make proposals. Am I mistaken that there hasn't been a comprehensive budget passed in several years and that most mundane spending has just been rolled over?

I believe that's correct. But Congress still authorizes the roll overs. that's not an automatic budgetary process. So in a lot of ways we're just splitting hairs. Congress is passing budgets, just not a new budget.

News stories always highlight workers/people falling through the gaps. Is there any concensus about the education or skill sets required to succeed today. Are the impediments that truly prevent people a dedicated person from achieving success? Or is failure more due to competing lifestyle choices and valuing other things over economic success?

I'd go with.....
- practical university degree and related professional designation, think accounting, engineering, health sciences
- Willingness to continually update your skill and education
- communication skills
- certified trades, such as plumber, electrician, hvac
- willingness to relocate, you have to be willing to go where the jobs are
- entrepreneurial risk taking

the assumption here is that college is a trade school.

burying money and digging it up is little different in practice than digging for gold.

If your only customer has infinite debt, then you lend them money or else you can't sell your products. So long as we can maintain dominance over critical resources (food, fresh water, petrol, steel), an infinite debt might not be an issue.

This scenario is pure nonsense and you know it.

I don't know it. I am starting to believe central banks (who control the money supply and all information about that money supply) can simply make up the rules for fiat currencies as they go, so why not create a loop that will last as long as resource inputs do? I mean, how do you really know what the debt actually is? It is what the government says it is. But the government is also the debtor, so how can you trust them?

The FED and the american gov are powerful, but not almighty to fool everybody indefinitely, and there is also the whole issue of stagnaflation, workers becoming less competitive, capital misalocated and all this jazz that no currency manipulation will avoid (actually just make it worse). All the muscles are turning into fat and no shirt will be able to disguise that.

lawrence tribe on the 'trillion dollar coin'

I don’t think it makes sense to think about this as some sort of “loophole” issue. Using the statute this way doesn’t entail exploiting a loophole; it entails just reading the plain language that Congress used. The statute clearly does authorize the issuance of trillion-dollar coins. First, the statute itself doesn’t set any limit on coin value. Second, other clauses of 31 USC §5112 do set such limits, but §5112(k)—dealing with platinum coins—does not. So expressio unius strengthens the inference that there isn’t any limit here.

Of course, Congress probably didn’t have trillion-dollar coins in mind, but there’s no textual or other legal basis for importing this probable intention into the statute. What 535 people might have had in their collective “mind” just can’t control the meaning of a law this clear.

It’s also quite clear that the minting of such a coin couldn’t be challenged; I don’t see who would have standing.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-mi ... um=twitter

I see Tribe is channeling his inner Scalia in a bizarro way. It almost reads as a taunt to dare SCOTUS to even challenge this in an effort to get Scalia to contradict himself.

"There is no law that forbids this extremely stupid idea, so it's ok even if extremely stupid".

lol, yeah pretty much.

I kind of want this coin to be quarter sized and then deposited by mistake in a soda machine.

imagine the change pouring out from that fucker

So, anyone kinda surprised by the payroll tax increase? I knew it was coming, but dang.

It's not an increase.

It's a return to what it was forever and ever before the known-to-be temporary "decrease".

Good point, I was wrong to use that word.