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Comment by asnyder | Hacker News Reader

I thought this was an interesting article as it's more analysis than it is political commentary, something the hacker news community could enjoy from an analytical perspective.

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This article is a pseduo-analytical wrapper around an extremely partisian stance: My political opponents are irrational idiots (literally mad elephants), having purposely made themselves incapable of rational cooperation. Therefore, I will take the high road as the morally upright and rational person I am.

The key thing about the game of chicken is that it is symmetric. And, in fact, the current budget debate is more-or-less so: both the president and the house republicans must agree; it either rejects the deal, there is a terrible consequence for everyone. (It's possible, of course, to argue that one side will come out worse, to break the symmetry, but the article makes no attempt to justify such a claim.) Declaring one side crazy and the other side righteous is hardly analysis.

Tea Party-leaning legislators have constituents who actually want them to shut down the Federal Government, so they have less to lose than those legislators beholden to sane voters.

The problem is, once your opponent in this game of chicken has visibly guzzled a fifth of bourbon and torn off his steering wheel, it's too late for you to do the same.

You are falling into the same trap. You see them wanting to shut down the goverment and decided they are insane.

They have perfectly sane reasons for wanting that - you just don't agree. And if you are unable to see that, then the fault lies with you, not with them.

Whether they're sane by some objective standard is irrelevant to this understanding of the underlying game theory. If someone handcuffs himself to you on the edge of a cliff and starts dancing a jig, he has the upper hand in negotiations, for pretty much anything he wants to negotiate.

You are still stuck.

You think they are doing things just to annoy you, or for no reason at all.

They are choosing things because they think it's the best thing to do.

But you seem incapable of realizing that someone may actually have a different opinion about something. You seem to think that if they have a different opinion it must mean that they are not rational.

They have perfectly sane reasons for wanting that

Name one.

To force the country to prioritize its spending and stop creating higher taxes on future generations. Deficit spending is taxation without representation, and should be eliminated.

Both parties are guilty of deficit spending (republicans more so) and new representatives were elected in 2010 to reduce spending.

Why are you asking me? Go ask them.

And whatever answer they give you, if you think that it's not a sane reason then the problem lies with you, not with them.

It's hard, but eventually you will learn to accept that other people have different opinions about things - even things that seem totally obvious to you.

I am asking you because you made the assertion.

Now you're asking me to go prove your assertions for you. I wasn't the one who made the claim.

It's hard, but eventually you will learn to accept that other people have different opinions about things - even things that seem totally obvious to you.

This is unnecessary. I do accept that other people have different opinions. What I don't accept is that they are inherently sane, which is the assertion you made. I simply asked you to support the claim that there are sane reasons with an example of such a reason.

> I do accept that other people have different opinions.

You say that and yet you can't think of even a single sane reason to want to shut down the government?

The situation isn't symmetric - the President will just invoke the 14th Amendment and bump up the debt ceiling next week if needs be. It's just that the Democrats seem to have decided to use this issue to demonstrate to the voting public just how unreasonable the Republicans have become in negotiations, by trying to negotiate when they don't even need to. Looking at recent polling results, the strategy seems to be working.

There's one big flaw in any plan to unilaterally increase the debt ceiling: it's not really clear whether that would be legal. You could make a reasonable argument on either side, and the final arbiter would be the Supreme Court, which is not particularly liberal these days. Nobody who wants a safe investment would buy the new treasury debt issued under those conditions without a significant risk premium above what they are paying now; I certainly wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole without a couple of hundred basis points of spread over the current yield. Not something the government would want to lock itself into for 2 years to avoid skipping some Social Security payments.

It's true that it isn't cut and dried whether or not the 14th can be invoked, which means that any attempt to use the 14th would likely end up in the Supreme Court. It is also true that the Supreme Court is not terribly liberal at the moment. But, fortunately enough for the US and the world, raising the debt ceiling is not a 'liberal' cause - it's something that G.W. Bush, G. Bush, R. Reagan and others from the conservative side of politics have seen fit to do. It is not likely (in my opinion) that the Supreme Court would follow Tea Party rhetoric against the advice of every economics advisor out there. In other words, I think that ending up in the Supreme Court is pretty much a win for anyone that thinks the debt ceiling needs to be raised...

To me, it's not even clear that it would end up with a decision in the Supreme Court given the political questions doctrine and the fact that's hard to imagine who would have standing. I think that the worst that would happen is long impeachment proceedings.

Issuing SS payments does not affect the federal debt subject to the debt ceiling. This means that SS is not in any danger from the debt ceiling.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190355490457645...

Can you explain how Obama could invoke the 14th? After reading it, it doesn't seem to mention any executive powers (IANAL, I am curious though).

not legal.. it specifically refers to rebellion and insurrection and costs associated with putting down a rebellion or insurrection which by no stretch can apply to the war on terror..hence Obama rejecting its use.

IANAL, but the language does not limit the guarantee of the public debt only to putting down rebellion or insurrection - those are specific cases that are included, and I would hazard to guess that the language was put in the clause to contrast with the next part which explicitly voids any debt the US has towards anyone in rebellion/insurrection against the US.

EDIT: Here's the text of section 4 of the amendment in it's entirety - "Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void."

"Literally" mad elephants? ;) http://xkcd.com/725/

"Literally" referred to the fact that the OP literally called them mad elephants, not that they literally are .

I was just reminded of that xkcd comic and thought I would share. I wasn't actually trying to start an argument about the usage of the term "literally" (which is why I'm not continuing it!). In any case, I would have thought the comic portrays the person doing the correcting in a crazy enough light to show disdain for the practice...

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