> So much for the lie that Trump would "end big gov".
The Republicans like to talk about fiscal responsibility to attack “tax and spend” Democrats, but when the Republicans are in power they are much more inclined to cut taxes than spending (they certainly redirect spending, but they never cut as much as they cut taxes.)
The US hasn't had a sustainable budget since 2002.
The Obama years added ~$10 trillion in debt in eight years. How was that sustainable exactly?
For the last decade, the CBO has been forecasting blown out budget deficits starting about now, because of entitlement costs. There's no scenario where the budget deficit doesn't explode, unless you cut entitlements, dramatically raise taxes, or both.
The word "borrow" is not entirely accurate. Exactly what happens when the US federal government has a deficit is complicated, but it's closer to issuing new money than it is to taking out a loan.
Not really - What I assume you are thinking about is the Fed buying the treasuries(with their money printing skills) that are issued in their QE program. However QE is winding down, and a larger and larger % of that borrowed money comes from private investors using their own money. While after the recession the fed was responsible for buying more than half of the treasuries for years, those days are over.
It still amazes me how governments manage to keep borrowing money while being in constant growing deficit.
Is there such thing as a real trust in the future possibility of paying the debt back? Or is it a hope of taking as much money as possible while there are inflation opportunities? - then generating more and more inflation. The first option is interesting, the second one quite scary and I can't help thinking Ponzi. Anyone with a better understanding of economics could help seeing a little bit better through this?
If the % required to service it was growing significantly, that'd be a problem. The debt outstanding growing, on its own, doesn't matter.
The government is not a human who better pay off their debt by 65 or they're screwed. The government'll keep receiving income "forever", in a pretty predictable way. So there is no reason to ever stop borrowing; it'd be leaving money on the table (utility of a dollar now > utility of a dollar later).
The US government has a long history of repaying it's debts. I'd say that can continue indefinitely, so long as the debt-to-GDP ratio remains manageable.
That's because the government's deficit is the people's surplus, by simple accounting identity. Paying off the debt would be catastrophic. Andrew Jackson did it, and 1 year later we had a financial crisis. Clinton gave us a surplus, which led to a financial crisis. It's very simple: either the government is in debt to the people, or the people are in debt to the governmet. The latter is a perverse situation.
this podcast says its because the usd is the dominant world reserve currency (a lot of trade is priced in usd, critically oil due to USA alliance with saudi arabia) so there is high foreign demand for usd. they allege that keeping it this way - keeping demand for usd high - is why USA occupies the middle east.
it also says that the usd is dying and that the USA's free lunch (ability to borrow endlessly without consequences) is now ending or already ended, though the politicians will deny it.
they also say that if you are russia or china, the obvious move is to hire a bunch of blockchain engineers, try to unload your usd treasury bonds (forcing a financial crisis in the USA in the 2020s when the USA politicians don't realize they can't borrow anymore), and then simply wait, and when the dollar dies you can step in and "save the world" from the dying dollar with their new cryptocurrency.
obviously, russia famously had meetings with Vitalek (ethereum founder) and there is a huge amount of blockchain investment happening in China right now.
Funny thing I learned recently - the US federal budget deficit has little to do with how much the government borrows: federal institutions can borrow money on their own, that is why for instance the US government debt can grow faster this year even if the deficit is lower than the previous year.
I've can't understand why this isn't more of a concern;
- The rate of increase is taking this debt rapidly to somewhere unsustainable.
- With the fractured politics this becomes so much more dangerous/likely to be an issue.
- Interest rates are pushing up adding to the servicing costs, currently about 500 billion/yr and probably likely to become the single largest payment line on the federal budget.
- Pension funds are going to be increasingly liquidating treasuries as boomers retire and they hit their own funding issues.
- Countries like China are selling off holdings.
- The debt is going to be an increasing drag on the economy to grow or safely inflate out of it.
- I cant see the political parties reducing military or social security costs of any significance to reduce the growing pressure.
The only positives seem;
- The amazing strength and scope of the US economy.
- Trump once proposed a one-time wealth levy/tax to pay this down, so if this happened it would be a game changer.
So I do believe the US is capable of sorting this out if the political will/intelligence was there. But I dont see this mood and feel people like to kick the can down the road these days. Time will tell.
I think it's a perspective problem. Since this issue is more complex, I'll use a simpler one - nuclear weapons. There has not been major unrestrained warfare directly between modern nations in what's approaching a century. Very few people alive today have lived through this sort of warfare. So it becomes a unicorn. Yet we still have things like nuclear weapons. And people see these as a relic of times past. Why would you want these sort of weapons when this sort of warfare no longer exists? And so naturally we have an increasing push to try to get rid of nuclear weapons, a stark reminder of a 'less enlightened times.'
Of course the reality is that this era of peace we've created has largely been enabled by nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction is indeed MAD but it has been the one thing, in the entire history of our species, that has managed to prevent this sort of conflict. Without nuclear weapons nations like the US, China, and Russia would certainly have long since came to 'hot war' in the process of determining who's ideology will be the world ideology. And that certainly would have drawn in the rest of the world, one way or the other: to wit, World War 3.
And so too today in economics, most people have lived during an era when the US has been more than capable of 'printing' (not how many is made - another complex topic) vast sums of money while suffering no real economic consequence, as well as being involved a system where we are only able to pay off old debts by taking on new debts - with no expectation of this ever really changing. If a private organization was behaving as we do, it would be considered a Ponzi Scheme. The reasons for this economic immunity are complex -- the fact our currency is indirectly backed by oil is a major player. But the point is is that people don't see any nuance here. We've always been able to behave this way (from the perspective of most people), so why would anything suddenly change? Probably a similar scenario to what happens at the end of any other meaningfully long era.
Remember, the US is monetarily sovereign. The government has the ability to create and destroy US dollars. Things you don't need to worry about:
- Default. If it happens, it would be a purely political move, not an economic or financial one. The US federal government can always afford payments. A check from the federal government never bounces. They can always just credit bank accounts. In fact, the government can abolish the debt instantly. They can simply redeem all Treasuries with bank reserves.
- Interest rates. The Federal reserve controls short-term interest rates. And the supply of long-term Treasuries doesn't impact interest rates: increased government deficits lead to an increase in the size of bank reserves which lead to an increase in demand in Treasury bonds that matches the increased supply, since banks want to swap low-paying reserves with higher-paying debt instruments.
- China. Treasuries are like a savings account, while bank reserves are like a checking account. If China or pension funds (or anyone) sell off their Treasuries, it's akin to transferring money from a savings account to a checking account. What's the harm in that? And why would they do that? That would decrease their interest income.
Here are real concerns about ballooning national debt:
- Inflation. This can happen since the government is stimulating aggregate demand, in a classical Keynesian way. But it hasn't happened for a while, and if it does, the government can raise taxes. That shrinks the debt and decreases aggregate demand.
- Foreign exchange. With all the new USD floating around (because government spending = money creation and taxation = money destruction), there's a risk of a weaker dollar. But that has its upsides. And China's currency peg at least keeps the prices of Chinese goods fixed.
- Spending it unwisely. The government can't buy everone a pony. There aren't enough ponies in the world, and it would wreck the pony market.
Fortunately we don't have an unsustainable quality of life.
It's pretty simple mathematically. Not so simple politically.
You slash $250 billion off the US military. You slash $100 billion in local+state+federal spending off of all the activities related to the war on drugs.
You very lightly cut entitlements.
You raise taxes on the top 10% by quite a bit. You raise taxes on the next quarter by a modest amount.
Your budget is now close to break-even. You haven't impacted the standard of living of ~95% of Americans at all.
Quite the opposite, you just dramatically boosted the long-term prospects of the quality of life for the average American. Hundreds of billions in wasted revenue can now flow into highly productive use over time, whether healthcare or transportation/infrastructure (or just not running up debt interest by exceeding the budget). Just by not running up that debt interest, you'll save trillions of dollars over time.
If you really wanted to dramatically boost the US standard of living, you'd squeeze the healthcare cost monster to death. The monetary benefit of that system overwhelmingly flows to the top quarter of Americans, who are already doing extraordinarily well. We have a ton of room to work with in that area, that could improve our situation by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. It's not even necessary to get creative, all we have to do is begin copying any number of several highly function systems from around the world.
Cutting the military etc. will harm the economy you might say? Except that's obviously wrong. It'll further unleash the economy, releasing that money to far superior productive, compounding use. Most US military spending is for soldiers, who are contributing very little to the US economy as is versus their peers, their labor is low productivity and low innovation. They make nothing, they're nearly strictly consumption engines. No other prosperous developed economies have the need to spend on such things at such a high rate, neither does the US. It merely requires that the US accept that it's not the world police and doesn't need to be.
What will come first guys, the San Andreas fault letting go or the American stock market bubble? Both been steadily developing for quite some time now.
The US is (or was as of 2013) still making payments to children of Civil War veterans. Granted it's only 2 of them and less than a grand a year apiece but still.
The question I have is if the govt is truly printing our currency who is the govt borrowing money from. If the govt was truly making more money then it would simply balance the books by making enough money.
When you start talking about the Federal reserve as a non govt entity people call you crazy. Yet I have not heard why the govt borrows money from the govt.
> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing.
As a somewhat libertarian person, I will give you my opinion why I think that low taxes are better.
As history shows, all known forms of government eventually become very ineffective at spending money. Firstly, on the "macro" level, funds more often end up being allocated to useless projects (e.g. google trillion dollars useless plane). Secondly, on the "micro" level funds more often end up being allocated to work that does not produce any value - e.g. "paper pushers".
On the other hand, I see that my logic stops to work when the government ends up borrowing money anyway.
Regarding the federal budget and debt, I suggest you read into modern monetary theory (MMT).
> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing. Corporations like stability because it makes their profits predictable and lets them control the mood in the room (innovation, regulation, etc). Low taxes for the rich mean chaos - an extremely large, underpaid, underfed, underrepresented bottom class will not be good for the rich in the long run. High taxes for the rich mean a well-sustained middle class, with money to spend on products made by the corporations. It is also a safer place, with less homelessness, less violence, less hatred.
Agreed. The US has enough economic leverage to ignore the silly threats of "we're going to move our business out of the US if you do [something]" or "the rich will move away if you do [something]." Fine, go ahead and stop operating in one of the largest developed markets in the world. Sounds like a very wise business move (not).
Ok so as a somewhat left wing libertarian I'll give my 2 cents.
Most of us on the economically conservative side are against taxes wherever possible. The only thing we like less than taxes is spending. The ideology that I follow and most other conservatives I know follow is that the government should strive to spend the least amount of money necessary to guarantee the services that it promises its citizens. With that in mind, taxes should only be raised to guarantee sufficient funds for all promised services and should only be lowered when there is money left on the table. (i.e. depreciation or discontinuation of services or increased operating efficiency)
Now as to where those taxes should be concentrated is largely dependent on who you are talking to however personally I believe that taxes should be focused solely on consumption of goods and services rather than taxing people on income and assets but then again this is just my opinion.
The problem with what does and doesn't classify as economically conservative is that raising taxes is against the goals of conservative ideology however it is one of a handful of options for maintaining a balanced budget. The other is reevaluating spending and cutting costs where they can be cut.
Like everything else it is a matter of tradeoffs and economic conservatives tend towards cutting costs before increasing taxes. The only issue is that the republican party tends to ignore the cutting cost part and I wouldn't really consider the party to be considered "economically conservative" in their current state.
The thing about moving out of the country if taxes are not reduced is pure bravado that is spread by Republicans. If a company moves out because of taxes, they will lose a lot of the advantages of being headquartered in the US: privileged access to research, infrastructure, favorable laws, natural resources, and so many other factors.
Another point that is not understood is that high taxes are good for companies: it forces executives to reinvest most of the money they receive in the business, so that there is little money left to be paid in taxes. In a low tax environment, on the other hand, there is always high pressure from so-called active shareholders to return most of the gains. This is one of the reasons why modern American companies are run so much focused on the next quarter. I expect that this tax break will make matters much worse, and public companies will be forced to return most of the money they make immediately to shareholders.
It is not a surprise that the best times for American industry happened when taxes were very high in the 50s and early 60s.
The window is so far to the right currently that you are voting for corporatism or more corporatism. Don't expect democrats to roll any of this shit back.
I thought we would get stagflation after 2008. Then I thought Janet Yellen was going to actually unwind qe without inflation or high interest rates. And now a goofball pseudo president could screw it all up.
Geniune question: Instead of printing new money, would it be a good idea for the government to launch a cryptocurrency and raise the money that way? This would be a gov backed coin. Thoughts.
Beyond providing employment for a few folks involved in implementation and systems maintenance, in what way does launching a government-backed cryptocurrency benefit over the existing state-backed currency?
[+] [-] seba_dos1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GunlogAlm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisacctforreal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhiska|8 years ago|reply
More like end having a sustainable budget.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
The Republicans like to talk about fiscal responsibility to attack “tax and spend” Democrats, but when the Republicans are in power they are much more inclined to cut taxes than spending (they certainly redirect spending, but they never cut as much as they cut taxes.)
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
The Obama years added ~$10 trillion in debt in eight years. How was that sustainable exactly?
For the last decade, the CBO has been forecasting blown out budget deficits starting about now, because of entitlement costs. There's no scenario where the budget deficit doesn't explode, unless you cut entitlements, dramatically raise taxes, or both.
Have a look:
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs...
[+] [-] jimrandomh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryptophan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devereaux|8 years ago|reply
This article says that this year alone, the government is borrowing 1 trillion.
I wonder if people who say crypto is a bubble are factoring in seignorage, especially in this order of magnitude.
[+] [-] tbronchain|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axau|8 years ago|reply
The government is not a human who better pay off their debt by 65 or they're screwed. The government'll keep receiving income "forever", in a pretty predictable way. So there is no reason to ever stop borrowing; it'd be leaving money on the table (utility of a dollar now > utility of a dollar later).
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarkMc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jganetsk|8 years ago|reply
Please read about Modern Money Theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDL4c8fMODk https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/deficit-tax-cuts-...
[+] [-] dustingetz|8 years ago|reply
it also says that the usd is dying and that the USA's free lunch (ability to borrow endlessly without consequences) is now ending or already ended, though the politicians will deny it.
they also say that if you are russia or china, the obvious move is to hire a bunch of blockchain engineers, try to unload your usd treasury bonds (forcing a financial crisis in the USA in the 2020s when the USA politicians don't realize they can't borrow anymore), and then simply wait, and when the dollar dies you can step in and "save the world" from the dying dollar with their new cryptocurrency.
obviously, russia famously had meetings with Vitalek (ethereum founder) and there is a huge amount of blockchain investment happening in China right now.
https://www.macrovoices.com/336-anatomy-of-the-u-s-dollar-en...
[+] [-] dandare|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|8 years ago|reply
- The rate of increase is taking this debt rapidly to somewhere unsustainable.
- With the fractured politics this becomes so much more dangerous/likely to be an issue.
- Interest rates are pushing up adding to the servicing costs, currently about 500 billion/yr and probably likely to become the single largest payment line on the federal budget.
- Pension funds are going to be increasingly liquidating treasuries as boomers retire and they hit their own funding issues.
- Countries like China are selling off holdings.
- The debt is going to be an increasing drag on the economy to grow or safely inflate out of it.
- I cant see the political parties reducing military or social security costs of any significance to reduce the growing pressure.
The only positives seem;
- The amazing strength and scope of the US economy.
- Trump once proposed a one-time wealth levy/tax to pay this down, so if this happened it would be a game changer.
So I do believe the US is capable of sorting this out if the political will/intelligence was there. But I dont see this mood and feel people like to kick the can down the road these days. Time will tell.
[+] [-] indubitable|8 years ago|reply
Of course the reality is that this era of peace we've created has largely been enabled by nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction is indeed MAD but it has been the one thing, in the entire history of our species, that has managed to prevent this sort of conflict. Without nuclear weapons nations like the US, China, and Russia would certainly have long since came to 'hot war' in the process of determining who's ideology will be the world ideology. And that certainly would have drawn in the rest of the world, one way or the other: to wit, World War 3.
And so too today in economics, most people have lived during an era when the US has been more than capable of 'printing' (not how many is made - another complex topic) vast sums of money while suffering no real economic consequence, as well as being involved a system where we are only able to pay off old debts by taking on new debts - with no expectation of this ever really changing. If a private organization was behaving as we do, it would be considered a Ponzi Scheme. The reasons for this economic immunity are complex -- the fact our currency is indirectly backed by oil is a major player. But the point is is that people don't see any nuance here. We've always been able to behave this way (from the perspective of most people), so why would anything suddenly change? Probably a similar scenario to what happens at the end of any other meaningfully long era.
[+] [-] jganetsk|8 years ago|reply
Remember, the US is monetarily sovereign. The government has the ability to create and destroy US dollars. Things you don't need to worry about:
- Default. If it happens, it would be a purely political move, not an economic or financial one. The US federal government can always afford payments. A check from the federal government never bounces. They can always just credit bank accounts. In fact, the government can abolish the debt instantly. They can simply redeem all Treasuries with bank reserves.
- Interest rates. The Federal reserve controls short-term interest rates. And the supply of long-term Treasuries doesn't impact interest rates: increased government deficits lead to an increase in the size of bank reserves which lead to an increase in demand in Treasury bonds that matches the increased supply, since banks want to swap low-paying reserves with higher-paying debt instruments.
- China. Treasuries are like a savings account, while bank reserves are like a checking account. If China or pension funds (or anyone) sell off their Treasuries, it's akin to transferring money from a savings account to a checking account. What's the harm in that? And why would they do that? That would decrease their interest income.
Here are real concerns about ballooning national debt:
- Inflation. This can happen since the government is stimulating aggregate demand, in a classical Keynesian way. But it hasn't happened for a while, and if it does, the government can raise taxes. That shrinks the debt and decreases aggregate demand.
- Foreign exchange. With all the new USD floating around (because government spending = money creation and taxation = money destruction), there's a risk of a weaker dollar. But that has its upsides. And China's currency peg at least keeps the prices of Chinese goods fixed.
- Spending it unwisely. The government can't buy everone a pony. There aren't enough ponies in the world, and it would wreck the pony market.
[+] [-] ohiovr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bedhead|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
It's pretty simple mathematically. Not so simple politically.
You slash $250 billion off the US military. You slash $100 billion in local+state+federal spending off of all the activities related to the war on drugs.
You very lightly cut entitlements.
You raise taxes on the top 10% by quite a bit. You raise taxes on the next quarter by a modest amount.
Your budget is now close to break-even. You haven't impacted the standard of living of ~95% of Americans at all.
Quite the opposite, you just dramatically boosted the long-term prospects of the quality of life for the average American. Hundreds of billions in wasted revenue can now flow into highly productive use over time, whether healthcare or transportation/infrastructure (or just not running up debt interest by exceeding the budget). Just by not running up that debt interest, you'll save trillions of dollars over time.
If you really wanted to dramatically boost the US standard of living, you'd squeeze the healthcare cost monster to death. The monetary benefit of that system overwhelmingly flows to the top quarter of Americans, who are already doing extraordinarily well. We have a ton of room to work with in that area, that could improve our situation by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. It's not even necessary to get creative, all we have to do is begin copying any number of several highly function systems from around the world.
Cutting the military etc. will harm the economy you might say? Except that's obviously wrong. It'll further unleash the economy, releasing that money to far superior productive, compounding use. Most US military spending is for soldiers, who are contributing very little to the US economy as is versus their peers, their labor is low productivity and low innovation. They make nothing, they're nearly strictly consumption engines. No other prosperous developed economies have the need to spend on such things at such a high rate, neither does the US. It merely requires that the US accept that it's not the world police and doesn't need to be.
[+] [-] hkmurakami|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|8 years ago|reply
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-t...
A common rule of thumb is 120% means debt is in serious trouble.
Here is a comparison of the G20: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to...
[+] [-] jaequery|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mythrwy|8 years ago|reply
The US is (or was as of 2013) still making payments to children of Civil War veterans. Granted it's only 2 of them and less than a grand a year apiece but still.
[+] [-] geggam|8 years ago|reply
When you start talking about the Federal reserve as a non govt entity people call you crazy. Yet I have not heard why the govt borrows money from the govt.
[+] [-] wavefunction|8 years ago|reply
The wealthy turn around and buy US government bonds.
The rest of us pay the wealthy bond interest and pay taxes against the debt accrued by offering tax cuts to the wealthy so they could buy US bonds.
[+] [-] t3soro|8 years ago|reply
The Fed can also buy other assets besides T-bills and use them to back new issuance of US currency notes.
You can read the federal reserve act at Frb.gov
[+] [-] jganetsk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramzyo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoz|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kozikow|8 years ago|reply
As a somewhat libertarian person, I will give you my opinion why I think that low taxes are better.
As history shows, all known forms of government eventually become very ineffective at spending money. Firstly, on the "macro" level, funds more often end up being allocated to useless projects (e.g. google trillion dollars useless plane). Secondly, on the "micro" level funds more often end up being allocated to work that does not produce any value - e.g. "paper pushers".
On the other hand, I see that my logic stops to work when the government ends up borrowing money anyway.
[+] [-] pktgen|8 years ago|reply
> How do I know this? Because it's the only logical thing. Corporations like stability because it makes their profits predictable and lets them control the mood in the room (innovation, regulation, etc). Low taxes for the rich mean chaos - an extremely large, underpaid, underfed, underrepresented bottom class will not be good for the rich in the long run. High taxes for the rich mean a well-sustained middle class, with money to spend on products made by the corporations. It is also a safer place, with less homelessness, less violence, less hatred.
Agreed. The US has enough economic leverage to ignore the silly threats of "we're going to move our business out of the US if you do [something]" or "the rich will move away if you do [something]." Fine, go ahead and stop operating in one of the largest developed markets in the world. Sounds like a very wise business move (not).
[+] [-] jacoblambda|8 years ago|reply
Most of us on the economically conservative side are against taxes wherever possible. The only thing we like less than taxes is spending. The ideology that I follow and most other conservatives I know follow is that the government should strive to spend the least amount of money necessary to guarantee the services that it promises its citizens. With that in mind, taxes should only be raised to guarantee sufficient funds for all promised services and should only be lowered when there is money left on the table. (i.e. depreciation or discontinuation of services or increased operating efficiency)
Now as to where those taxes should be concentrated is largely dependent on who you are talking to however personally I believe that taxes should be focused solely on consumption of goods and services rather than taxing people on income and assets but then again this is just my opinion.
The problem with what does and doesn't classify as economically conservative is that raising taxes is against the goals of conservative ideology however it is one of a handful of options for maintaining a balanced budget. The other is reevaluating spending and cutting costs where they can be cut.
Like everything else it is a matter of tradeoffs and economic conservatives tend towards cutting costs before increasing taxes. The only issue is that the republican party tends to ignore the cutting cost part and I wouldn't really consider the party to be considered "economically conservative" in their current state.
[+] [-] coliveira|8 years ago|reply
Another point that is not understood is that high taxes are good for companies: it forces executives to reinvest most of the money they receive in the business, so that there is little money left to be paid in taxes. In a low tax environment, on the other hand, there is always high pressure from so-called active shareholders to return most of the gains. This is one of the reasons why modern American companies are run so much focused on the next quarter. I expect that this tax break will make matters much worse, and public companies will be forced to return most of the money they make immediately to shareholders.
It is not a surprise that the best times for American industry happened when taxes were very high in the 50s and early 60s.
[+] [-] balthasar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knieveltech|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devereaux|8 years ago|reply
They could even call it "tether".
It would be almost indistinguishable from the recent situation - except tether is a private company, and the govt does not like competition.
[+] [-] Zigurd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohiovr|8 years ago|reply