We are now at ~ $8,500,000,000,000 and are climbing at a rough rate of $1,740,000,000 a day. That comes out to roughly $20,000 a second. From the time the republicans took office of the presidency from 1980 to 1992, the debt quadrupled! Twelve years ago, I wrote a thesis paper on the national debt in my advanced economics topic class. At the time, the debt wasn't as bad because Americans owned $4,000,000,000,000 of the $4,600,000,000,000 debt. Now, we own less than half of the national debt. The rest is owned by foreigners. This country and its citizens are in a sad state of affairs! What is the scariest of this is the fact that 1/3 of the tax revenues are being used to pay the interest on the debt.
So much for that then. Whats the point of projections? They mean jack. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/411973.stm Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The sad thing is, that was a projection after Clinton had gotten the budget balanced. Now, with Bush, spending is far exceeding income and the debt is growing substantially every day.
I'm suprised Bush is spending so much, I thought it was supposed to be Democrats that love to spend, spend, spend?
In scientific notation debt is 8.5E12 and US population is now 300 million or 3E8 people. (8.5E12)/(3E8) = $28,333 dollars of debt for every man, woman and child, even a baby only one minute old! (No wonder US babies cry when born without the normal bottom smack.) US can borrow money at about 6% still. Thus, with no repayment, just the interest on your share of the national debt, you must fork over (in taxes) $1,700 just to service the old debt each year, again for each man, woman, child, and baby. I.e. the “family of four” needs to pay taxes of $6,800 annually just so US can avoid borrowing to pay interest. All government expense such as the rapidly growing payments to retiring baby boomers by Social Security, Medicare, NIH medical research, alternate energy research, FBI. etc. is on top of this debt service cost. With the cost of living going up and average salaries going down for last four years in constant value dollars (in part because the baby boomers, who were at the peak of their earnings and tax paying years, are starting to retire and collect from government and saved funds instead of pay taxes or invest.) it is not possible to even to avoid US borrowing more just to pay interest on the old debt. Then of course there are little things like Bush's wars ($300 billion thus far spent and most of the cost yet to come in benefits, veteran’s hospital expenses, etc.) but considering only what has already been spent alone or $3E11 or per man woman and child that is: (3E11)/(3E8) = $1,000 spent for each man, woman, child and baby. Considering Iraq is about to undeniably enter into civil war, do you think you (each and every one of you, babies included) are happy with chipping in $1,000 per head? Want to "stay on this course?" (no end in sight?) Clearly US debt has become so great and is growing ever faster every year that it can never be repaid in constant value dollars. What will happen? Will US go bankrupt? - No - Never! Not so long as there are printing presses, green ink and paper. When China decides it can sell its production internally and to Brazil (for iron ore, soy beans etc) etc. without selling anything to US, and when Iran, Venezuela, Russia etc start to desire Yuan more than Dollars then the US must: (1) Ever more rapidly each month run those printing presses as foreigners, see the dollar slide in value cease to recycle dollars to US by buying Treasury Notes and Bonds. Or (2) Dramatically raise interest rates paid to compensate foreigners (China et. al.) for the decreasing value of each dollar paid - god help you if your home has an adjustable rate mortgage on it as you will also be out of work in the general economic down turn high interest rates will produce. Or (3) A combination of (1) and (2). Anyway you slice it. - US will soon be going down economically much faster than China is going up. It is really simple: - US is like a family that has been living well beyond it income for six years (since GWB converted Clinton's surpluses into record setting debts) and every month or so throws (on borrowed money) a bigger party than last month's party just trying to impress the creditors that everything is OK - no need to worry, just lend us a little more etc. …… Almost any idiot can finish this story -tell how that family ends up.
What does any of this have to do with capitalism??? Our high tax rates more closely resemble a socialist system. As does our government, which has quietly taken over the industries of education, charity, health care, transportation, etc.
To cool skill and Did you post here by error? Thread subject is not capitalism. Comment on my (or other's) National Debt posts.
When considering national debt, it's more informative to consider figures in the context of the size of the economy in question. Sure, America has the largest debt in absolute dollar terms, but also the largest economy. You can find figures on national debt in terms of % of GDP here: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html Notice how many wealthy, developed countries run debts that exceed America's, as a portion of their GDPs: Japan, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Canada, Germany, France, Austria. So, if America's levels of debt are unsustainable and point to imminent decline, it must also be true that these other countries are about to slide into the abyss. And yet, many of them have run larger debts than America for generations and keep humming away. If you think about it for a while, the fact that America is able to run such an enormous debt and still get reasonable rates is a strong recommendation for the health of America's economy. After all, if America were going down the tubes, why would people still be loaning us money? Also, a list of debt per capita would be even more tilted in America's favor. Below is a listing of 10 industrialized nations by debt/population: Ireland: $262,200 UK: $118,500 Switzerland: $114,100 The Netherlands: $99,700 Belgium: $98,000 France: $46,330 Germany: $44,220 US: $29,700 Italy: $15,860 Japan: $12,200
What planet are you on? It has everything to do with crappytalism. Once upon a time, a bunch of idiots thought it was funny to implement a capitalist system based on primitve and completely inaccurate understanding of economics (resource management). Over the years it became more and more apparent that capitalism does not work. Eventually, we end up with greater and greater stratification. While some people make a small amount of money, others make billions upon billions. Slowly by slowly, the capital started going into fewer and fewer hands until eventually, we end up with a plutocracy in which a few people own most of the country, and the rest of the world must work for a living and to provide them with more and more capital as well. Eventually, a great deal of corruption occurs, and we are at war. If not that, money is being spent on other forms of cess. It is spent on everything but providing better lives on the populus. Result: Debt and a flamingly flawed monitary system as well as a hell on earth capitalism.
Either way, guess who is paying for these results? Try not to delude yoruself. Look around at the technology we have, and the high standard lives we are capable of producing for all. Then look around, and witness how people on this earth are actually living. Like shit.
Thaks for the fererence. unfortunately it does ot tell what fraction of the debt is internally held. In a very real sense, the US foreign debt should also include every dollar outside of US as well as treasury notes. About four yeas ago, I had more than $10,000 in green paper dollars in fire proof box gaining no interest as I did not trust the Brazilian Real, but now I have only about $800. Most dollars, by a wide margin, are still outside of US. - I think in Russia alone there are several times as many as circulate in the US. I think most Euros, for example, are the ones circulating in Euro land, not held outside it. I agree the whole world will sink into debt driven deep depression surely I think, within the decade, but it will soon be merged with inflation, in US at least, as the printing presses will crank out paper dollars to pay the "NON-ROLLED" - tresurery notes and bills. This collapse of dollar value will combine with external dollars returning to buy goods while they still have some purchasing power, so US exports will surge for two reasons - hard to know the overall effects, but US will live in "interesting times." I would like to know what you think will happen if China finds it need not hold dollars to buy oil and need not sell any production to US (all production going to suppliers of raw materials and domestic consumption.) and sees the purchasing power of its US bonds declining.
Think of it like this. You are in a game. The gms control and run the game. You are merely a player. The only difference is, we have the ability to rise up and take over the gm, and end their evil game.
An excellent description of a pre Adam Smith, pre-capitalism, Middle Ages economy, but as there is now a middle class, with most of the wealth, not very accurate now. Capitalism has spread the wealth, as well as greatly increased it, compared to pre- capitalistic economies. - but that is “not working” according to you. - Perhaps you would like to return to pre-capitalism and be a serf effectively owned some feudal lord?
I never said anything about returning to precapitalism. That is primitive minded thinking. Why even consider that? Furthermore, wealhth is not spread in a middle class. The precapitalist stratification that capitalism set off to minimize has returned, and is growing even worse. City/Social design is not about saying that the current system does not work, so let us return to an even more primitive system. That makes no sense whatsoever. I can't even comprehend how that thought could come to mind. Care to explain?
I agree, you did not. However, your started to discuss, describe, complain about capitalism in a thread about the national debt as if debt were somehow a product of modern consumer based capitalism, (post Marx), which it is not. For example, Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venus is about a man who had pledged a pound of his own flesh to guarantee his debt to Jewish lender. Almost all the medieval governments kings were in debt etc. Much if not most of Adam Smiths famous book is about the various ways to finance the governments debt.* I only noted you were off thread and that one of your descriptions of capitalism was not very good, as it more accurately described the pre-capitalism era of the middle ages. ------------------------------------------------ *One way he rated highly is no longer used: The government offered small interest rate and would pay total of principle back that it had collected (sums from the participants were inverse age adjusted or something like that - I forget details as read that book 30 years ago.) to the last surviving one. Typically only a dozen of so wealthy middle-aged men lent the government money in any one of these "winner take all pools." As each voluntary participant thought himself healthy and thus with a better than average chance to collect everything, the interest cost to the government for what might turn out to be a 40 year loan was very low.
It's not off topic. Crappytalism is the reason why we are in debt. Working economic systems do not result in these situations.
Well, you can get external debt numbers here: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html The external debt is about the same size as the public debt. I've heard estimates that the public debt is 60-70% held by foreigners. Incidentally, I used the external debt numbers for the list of per-capita debts in my previous post. I think you're overestimating the prominence of China in the US debt market. While it is true that they have recently surpassed Japan as the largest single holder of treasury securities, it's important to note that EU countries hold far more US debt than both Japan and China combined. China holds only around 10% of the US external debt; no single nation is in the position to unilaterally cause the dollar to collapse. It is true that large external debts carry the risk that holders will lose interest, especially if they expect the exchange rate value of the dollar to decline. This is, in fact, already happening, as several EU countries have diminished their stocks of dollars, Japan has stopped buying, and even China is expected to diversify in the coming years. What this adds up to is: a lower dollar, and higher US interest rates. These factors will work to correct the twin deficits: the trade deficit because US exports will become cheaper while foreign imports become more expensive and Americans will be saving more and spending less, and the budget deficit because Congress won't be able to borrow money at favorable rates anymore. This, in turn, will solidify the dollar's value, diminish the external debt and boost investment. Within a couple of years, everyone will be lining up to loan us money so we can repeat the whole process over again.
According to your world fact book, the entire earth is 36.8 trillion dollars in debt. Thanks again, crappytalism! East Timor! $0 debt. I beleive if I am not mistaken, this is the smallest country on the planet. They have have had alot of strife in that area.
