The Cellar - U.S. Debt

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- - U.S. Debt (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=3360)

One point is that a country has a much greater life span than an individual. Also the majority of people who have debt don't usually own trillions of dollars in military equipment, building, and land. I think the government could cover it's debt if absolutly necessary. But it doesn't have to.

Not that I'm disagreeing that we have to much debt. Just that it isn't the giant problem some people make it out to be.

But all the interest we're paying could be used to support me in a manner to which I'd like to become accustomed.:D

I agree with Cam, but given the absolutely retarded amount of money the government has spent over the past 2 years, someone needs their credit card taken away.

it's not really fair to compare government debt to consumer debt. It's more in line with corporate debt, where it would not be at all unusual for a corporation, even a large and well established corporation, to owe as much as 80 or 90% of it operating capital in debt.

-sm

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It's more in line with corporate debt,

Except they can't get a pork barrel bailout. Can the gumint declare chapter 11? 13?
As for having enough military, buildings and land to cover the debt, oh come now.
Do you really think they'd give them up?
If I've got a gun...no, I got the biggest gun in the world and you say, hey you owe me 50 bucks, Give me the gun.
Which end of the gun do you think you'll get?:rattat:

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Originally posted by smoothmoniker
it's not really fair to compare government debt to consumer debt. It's more in line with corporate debt, where it would not be at all unusual for a corporation, even a large and well established corporation, to owe as much as 80 or 90% of it operating capital in debt.

-sm

Well, the budget for 2003 is 2 trillion dollars, so that would make 6.5 trillion over %300. How would that make the average shareholder feel?

The whole system is BASED on debt.

Without debt, the system collapses.

It is sustained by creating more debt. Which is then passed off to other debtors. Who don't pay. Who borrow more. Which creates more money. Which keeps the system working.

It's actually a little frightening.

Read the book my quote below is from. SCARY. :eek:

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Originally posted by wolf
The whole system is BASED on debt.

Yep, Alexander Hamilton would be very pleased. Of course, I'm more of a Jefferson guy.

Eh, our founding fathers are overrated. I think Radar ruined them for me. :)

The IMF said this about AMerica's Debt situation:

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IMF research director Kenneth Rogoff, said recently, "Suppose for a moment we were talking about a developing country that had a gaping [trade] deficit year after year as far as the eye can see, a budget ink spinning from black into red, open-ended security costs and an exchange rate that has been inflated by capital inflows. With all that I think it's fair to say we'd be pretty concerned." The U.S. isn't a developing country, he said, but, nonetheless, for the global economy "the tax cut…on top of ongoing security expenditures seems awkwardly timed." (The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2003, pg. A2)

Bush lied about the first tax cut and he is lying about the newest tax cut. Most of the media are to stupid to point this out.

This new tax cut and the subsequent tax cuts every year ( this is seriously what Bush said he wants to do ) will effectively bankrupt our nation and force us to eliminate Social Security, medicare, medicaid, hud, and just about every other essential social program. As the debt grows, the middle class payroll taxes - you know the taxes that created the mass of the surplus - will go to pay the interest on the national debt.

The rich will walk away happy - content to know that the rabble are not feeding off of the government teet anymore.

This sounds extreme, but without a real media out there to hold these people to task, this is what will happen. In the long run, it fulfills a lot of Heritage Foundation fantasies. It will destroy the middle class and create a large serf class that will function as a cheap, exploitable working force for the rich.

Basically their goal is to turn back the clock on American society to what it was in the McKinley administration - a hundred years ago.

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Eh, our founding fathers are overrated.

Don't make the mistake of when you discover your heros have feet of clay, you discard their ideas and accomplishments. They were great men but they were after all just men.(add, not women for those that wish);)

Hell, even Jesus was just a hippy in his time.

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Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Don't make the mistake of when you discover your heros have feet of clay, you discard their ideas and accomplishments.

Nah, they may have been great people, but I can't say that any of them were my heroes to begin with.

Neil Stepherson - Inferface.

is, like all things monetary, a form of power. The structure of the American economy necessitates people at the bottom and at the top. The current administration is simply excacerbating the abuses inherent within our chosen system of socio-political power (Help! Help! I'm being repressed!). That doesn't mean that the system is wrong. It means that the system is being abused by the people at the top. Therefore as folks not at the top, we have to take that power back into our hands.
By the way, props to all the Cellar because this is one of the methods by which power iwe take that power back.