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The real problem is that there have been no 'lessons learned' from the 2008 crash. People still push growing gov't and adding public sector jobs as 'stimulus' as seen with the recently debated $450 billion 'American Jobs Act.'
What this means is that most likely we have another, more severe panic in the not-to-distant future. That's usually what happens when you don't learn from mistakes.
How many people really know what happened in 1971 or even earlier for that matter when inside the US we went off a metal system?
A federal debt was a debt to produce a metallic specie like a gold coin. That is what a treasury was. A federal debt or treasury bond was a metallic debt. A bank note was a similar debt. Yet this debt was, with the taxing power of the state, as good as gold. So like an IOU from a parent to a child this became more trusted than a promise from a sibling, siblings may very well circulate this IOU more than any promise of their own. So government debt began to circulate as paper gold.
So what happened when Nixon shut of the Bretton Woods standard? The debt for gold became as good as gold. In fact, it now is what gold was. Thus to pay off the national debt has the same effect as melting down the gold and taking it out of circulation. The national debt is now the money supply. The IOU has sublimated to an exchange value over and above its usefulness to pay off. Just like using gold for jewelry may be a poor decision when better used as money for some other need, so does a retired debt also depress the money supply.
Thus to speak of the national debt as a functional debt like a mortgage is nothing but illiterate babble; no sense can possibly be made of it.
How many people really know what happened in 1971 or even earlier for that matter when inside the US we went off a metal system?
A federal debt was a debt to produce a metallic specie like a gold coin. That is what a treasury was. A federal debt or treasury bond was a metallic debt. A bank note was a similar debt. Yet this debt was, with the taxing power of the state, as good as gold. So like an IOU from a parent to a child this became more trusted than a promise from a sibling. Siblings may very well circulate this IOU more than any promise of their own. So government debt began to circulate as paper gold.
So what happened when Nixon shut of the Bretton Woods standard? The debt for gold became as good as gold. In fact, it now is what gold was. Thus to pay off the national debt has the same effect as melting down the gold and taking it out of circulation. The national debt is now the money supply. The IOU has sublimated to an exchange value over and above its usefulness to pay off. Just like using gold for jewelry may be a poor decision when better used as money for some other need, so does a retired debt also depress the money supply.
Thus to speak of the national debt as a functional debt like a mortgage is nothing but illiterate babble; no sense can possibly be made of it.
How many people really know what happened in 1971 or even earlier for that matter when inside the US we went off a metal system?
A federal debt was a debt to produce a metallic specie like a gold coin. That is what a treasury was. A federal debt or treasury bond was a metallic debt. A bank note was a similar debt. Yet this debt was, with the taxing power of the state, as good as gold. So like an IOU from a parent to a child this became more trusted than a promise from a sibling, siblings may very well circulate this IOU more than any promise of their own. So government debt began to circulate as paper gold.
So what happened when Nixon shut of the Bretton Woods standard? The debt for gold became as good as gold. In fact, it now is what gold was. Thus to pay off the national debt has the same effect as melting down the gold and taking it out of circulation. The national debt is now the money supply. The IOU has sublimated to an exchange value over and above its usefulness to pay off. Just like using gold for jewelry may be a poor decision when better used as money for some other need, so does a retired debt also depress the money supply.
Thus to speak of the national debt as a functional debt like a mortgage is nothing but illiterate babble; no sense can possibly be made of it.
So why not just print one billion dollars for every person in America and make them all rich, thus eliminating poverty, reducing unemployment to zero, spur unprecidented spending and make everyone part of the evil 1%?
Perhaps, but I'd like to think our elected officials aren't that stupid.
What would likely happen if they just kept printing larger and larger bills to pay off the debt is similar to what happened in Zimbabwe - we'd eventually have to simply abandon the US dollar and use other currencies.
How high will the national debt go? Keep in mind the cuts they talk about are not really cuts. They are only a reduction of the annual increase in the budget. We have a 1.65 trillion dollar ANNUAL deficit and the budget goes up 7.5% AUTOMATICALLY EVERY YEAR. So cutting 1 trillion dollars over 10 years when the debt will increase another 20 TRILLIONS dollars is nothing.
Does anyone know math?
Ronald Reagan was correct. The debt doesn't matter, PROVIDED - the economy is growing fast enough to produce revenues sufficient to service the debt.
We need another FDR in office to Put America Back To Work. The current class of clowns is obviously not up to the task, neither Obama nor any of the jackleg republicans who want ot run against him.
I wish Eizabeth Warren was running. I'd vote for her in a heartbeat.
So why not just print one billion dollars for every person in America and make them all rich, thus eliminating poverty, reducing unemployment to zero, spur unprecidented spending and make everyone part of the evil 1%?
Great idea! If everyone was a billionaire the debt could be paid in full.
As it stands, the billionaires currently in existence will have to pony up if they want to continue to have a country to steal from.
Great idea! If everyone was a billionaire the debt could be paid in full.
As it stands, the billionaires currently in existence will have to pony up if they want to continue to have a country to steal from.
Lol. I know many millionaires and even a couple billionaires. None of them stole any of their money from anyone. You can be a billionaire if you want to be or you can chose not to be and just be jealous of them. It's up to you.
I chose to work hard enough to become a millionaire, but not so hard to become a billionaire. I feel no ill will toward people with more money than me.
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