Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 September 22

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September 22

Psychology, religion, political views, and occupation

Are psychology, religion, political views, and occupation/profession related? I seem to recall a study that detailed political and religious tendencies by occupation (or occupational category). Thank you. Vidtharr (talk) 02:15, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by psychology. But much work has been done to explore the relationship between the others. Category:Religion and politics and Category:Religion and science have lots of articles in. Also see Religiosity and intelligence and Religiosity and education as a starting point. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:21, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing that by "psychology" they mean personality types. I doubt if many type A personality people become librarians, for example: "You want me to recommend a book for you ? What, do I look like I have time to waste on pathetic losers like you ? Time is money ! Now get out of my sight !" StuRat (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I meant something along the lines of "personality types" (sorry for not being more specific). My primary interest was political and religious tendencies by occupation, but I'll take a closer look at the linked articles. Vidtharr (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

• You left out philosophy, which subsumes these categories. μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I find the intersection of four different factors complicates this question enormously. There has been plenty of studies, going back decades, about religion and politics, especially examining voting behavior. And I believe there have studies done of religious affiliation within specific occupational fields. And there is an entire field called Psychology of Religion that examines than intersection. But I don't think you'll find any work that combines all four of those specific components.

Regarding any studies of religion, doing anything resembling a nation-wide study costs millions and millions of money to conduct. Most agencies funding scholarship on religion are very focused on specific groups (say, millennials, Muslims, nurses), areas like cities or states, issues (like how do feminist women cope with being in conservative traditions) or historical, critical studies. Occasionally a researcher into religion can "piggyback" on someone else's large-scale study by including a few questions about religion on a survey of another topic but even that requires some serious financial investment. Bottom line? Sometimes answering the big questions costs a lot of money and many grants go to either scientific or medical research, not studying human behavior. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

When could the default on the US debt limit take place?

The date for the looming government shutdown is clear: if on Sept. 30 there is no budget or continuing resolution, it will happen. But what about the threat of a default on the national debt? Is the date definite, and if not, what does it depend on? --173.20.252.164 (talk) 13:02, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Our aptly named 2013 United States debt-ceiling debate which is linked from the equally aptly named United States debt-ceiling crisis mentions the middle of October and links to [1] with further explaination. This source says the same thing [2]. BTW I'm not trying to criticise your language but I do think the words are important to understand what is going on, your question seems fine but your title is IMO confusing. I'm pretty sure the US (government) will not default on their debt limit. They will default on some of their debts once the debt limit is reached as this means they can no longer borrow any more to enable them to pay all they need to including debts which are due. (As it's not believed realistic and I think under current law likely not even possible for them to reduce spending by such an amount that they can service their debt without further borrowing, as the source says to some extent it also depends on what debtees do.) I recognise something I've said here may be confusing or wrong as well as is common with these sort of things but decided it might still help so worth posting. Nil Einne (talk) 13:28, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

There's probably some short term patches that can be put in place to delay the default. First off, not all debts come due on that date, so they only need to be handled as they come due. Many debts can then be rolled over with the permission of the debt-holders ("Give us another year to pay off that debt and we will give you X more in interest"). The real threat is if debt-holders get scared that they will never be repaid unless they get their money quickly, and demand their payment the moment the loans come due. This is the classic "run on the banks" scenario, where everyone wants to get their money first, before it runs out. If that doesn't happen, and current debts are rolled over, but no new debts are created, that might actually be a good thing, forcing the US to learn to live within it's means for once. StuRat (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the technical definition of a default is "not paid on time". There can be different means to handle a default, but as soon as the U.S. goes to its bond holders and says "Give us another year to pay off that debt and we will give you X more in interest" that's a form of default: You aren't paying off the debt by the agreed upon terms. Refinancing and renegotiating terms are common means of handling a defaulted debt, but it doesn't make the debt less defaulted because the terms were renegotiated. --Jayron32 19:10, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if this applies, but it's not a "default" if you renegotiate the terms prior to the date when the dept comes due. Blueboar (talk) 13:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Here's how Annie Lowrey described it today in the New York Times: "To be clear, that is not “hitting the debt ceiling.” That happened on May 19. The government has stayed about $25 million below the $16,699,421,000,000 limit since then through various “extraordinary measures” that have let it free up about $300 billion in cash. But those “extraordinary measures” cannot last forever. One day — sometime in late October, probably, though nobody knows exactly when — cash going out would overwhelm cash coming in plus cash on hand. The government would keep missing payments, about 30 percent of them, until Congress raised the debt ceiling again." --Halcatalyst (talk) 22:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The latest thinking is October 17. [3]DOR (HK) (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC)