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The 800lb word in the room is: default. How likely/unlikely. I'm not an economist but I just don't see any way possible to service debt in the tens of trillions of dollars. America is way too divided politically, but more to the point, America considers the assets of the wealthy off limits when considering repayment strategies. In another thread we learn that 42,000 manufacturing jobs left America since Globalization and 90,000 more are on the auction block. Well, that lets the lower and middle class out of any repayment scenario. I almost understand the Anti Any Taxation Whatsoever movement. If you know that its a goner do you keep throwing good money after bad?
The 800lb word in the room is: default. How likely/unlikely. I'm not an economist but I just don't see any way possible to service debt in the tens of trillions of dollars. America is way too divided politically, but more to the point, America considers the assets of the wealthy off limits when considering repayment strategies. In another thread we learn that 42,000 manufacturing jobs left America since Globalization and 90,000 more are on the auction block. Well, that lets the lower and middle class out of any repayment scenario. I almost understand the Anti Any Taxation Whatsoever movement. If you know that its a goner do you keep throwing good money after bad?
H
Taxing alone will not slove this but will make it worse. We have to cut spending now before we have to default and then cut spending
we all play the game blame the otherside. blame Bush blame republicans blame Obama blame the democrats. Blame whoever you want , my question is how much deficit spending do we do before we stop . Is 2 trillion a year the point that we stop or 4 trillion a year. Will we stop before a complete meltdown?
We wont stop unless we stand up and say enough or it compleatly falls appart.
There is no chance that the US will default on anything. None. There is no chance that we will pay off the debt held by the public for at least a very long time. Do not worry that anyone will be coming around to collect your share.
The 800lb word in the room is: default. How likely/unlikely. I'm not an economist but I just don't see any way possible to service debt in the tens of trillions of dollars. America is way too divided politically, but more to the point, America considers the assets of the wealthy off limits when considering repayment strategies. In another thread we learn that 42,000 manufacturing jobs left America since Globalization and 90,000 more are on the auction block. Well, that lets the lower and middle class out of any repayment scenario. I almost understand the Anti Any Taxation Whatsoever movement. If you know that its a goner do you keep throwing good money after bad?
H
http://boombustblog.com/ He says of the PIIGS that it is about 80% chance of defalt. And we are in about the same shape as greese economicly but not politicaly.
From U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time, here are some statistic about the national debt. They update in real time, so it’s worth checking the site (the 0’s represent numbers that were increasing too fast to pin down):
US Population: 308,796,639.
US income taxpayers: 109,506,576.
US National Debt: $12,462,768,000,000.
Total Debt per citizen: $40,359.
Debt per taxpayer: $113,809.
Debt to GDP Ratio: 87.16683%.
Interest on Debt: $190,432,570,000.
Interest per citizen: $6,131.
Do I think it's possible to pay off a debt of $113,809 per taxpayer? No way. It's default or hyperinflation.
Greece does not have its own national currency. They obviously use the euro, over which they have no control. If they were still on the drachma, they would simply devalue and move on. What's missing here is an EU facility to do interventions, That's maybe a pretty big oversight considering what some of the eastern membership actually stacks up as. Greece can still go to the IMF, and it will if it has to. They would of course be accomodated there, but it would raise obvious questions about the adequacy of the EU if that were to happen. The EU should be looking at this as a training exercise for what an EU fire department should look like and how it would best operate. This is not the last time an alarm will be sounded somewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newonecoming
And we are in about the same shape as greese economicly but not politicaly.
There is no comparison at all between Greece and the US.
From U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time, here are some statistic about the national debt. They update in real time, so it’s worth checking the site (the 0’s represent numbers that were increasing too fast to pin down):
The site consists of a bunch of high school level GoLive code. There is no connection at all between the site and any actual public debt data, except as they periodically look up and load some recent positions and then turn their little whizbangs back on again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NHartphotog
Do I think it's possible to pay off a debt of $113,809 per taxpayer? No way. It's default or hyperinflation.
Why would we want to pay it off at all? Clinton got us within ten years or so of being able to pay off the part of the public debt that is actually held by the public, but such a moment is now unlikely to reappear for at least many decades. What we will actually do is what we have to do -- service the debt. That is, continue to make all payments of principal and interest as scheduled. No default. No hyperinflation. With a few isolated moments scattered in, that's what we've been doing since 1836.
The site consists of a bunch of high school level GoLive code. There is no connection at all between the site and any actual public debt data, except as they periodically look up and load some recent positions and then turn their little whizbangs back on again.
Why would we want to pay it off at all? Clinton got us within ten years or so of being able to pay off the part of the public debt that is actually held by the public, but such a moment is now unlikely to reappear for at least many decades. What we will actually do is what we have to do -- service the debt. That is, continue to make all payments of principal and interest as scheduled. No default. No hyperinflation. With a few isolated moments scattered in, that's what we've been doing since 1836.
Since you don't like that source, here are some others:
"Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, has been making the rounds on political news programs this week, criticizing President Barack Obama's budget as too costly. Gregg has repeated one statistic over and over to make his point: that Obama's budget plan would increase the national debt to 80 percent of gross domestic product.
"Seventeen trillion dollars worth of debt at the end of 10 years, $11 trillion at the end of five years," Gregg said. "This translates into a debt-to-GDP ratio which we have not seen in this country since the end of World War II when we were trying to pay off the war debt. Basically, you take national debt up to about 80 percent of gross national product. That's the public debt. Historically, it's been about 40 percent." Gregg's numbers come from an analysis of the Obama budget by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that the national debt would grow by $9.3 trillion between 2010 and 2019 under Obama's plan. According to the CBO, the debt held by the public would rise, from 41 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 to 57 percent in 2009 and then to 82 percent of GDP by 2019.
…the ratios have spiked occasionally as a result of recession or war, but have never gone above about 50 percent. That will change this year.
Gregg is on solid ground, relying on projections from the CBO, a highly respected, nonpartisan arm of Congress, about the long-term debt-to-GDP ratios." PolitiFact | Judd Gregg says Obama's budget drives national debt to 80 percent of GDP
"The Federal Government’s flood of red ink hit another high-water mark as the Treasury Department quietly reported today that the National Debt hit $11-trillion for the first time ever. To be exact, the Debt now stands at $11,033,157,578,669.78. Divide it by the U.S. population and it comes up to over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child among us. And the government is running up mountains of debt with increasing speed. It took just over 5 ½ months for Uncle Sam to go another trillion dollars deeper in debt since hitting $10-trillion last September 30th. It’s the fastest jump in U.S. history. National Debt Hits Record $11 Trillion - Political Hotsheet - CBS News
As of 2007, in chart form, debt is about 75% of GDP.
Key Political Economic Measures (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/thefederalbudget/ig/Political-Economic-Measures/Debt-as-a-Percent-of-GDP--1940.ht - broken link)
"In the Americas, The United States has a national debt of 8.68 trillion. In the U.S., this is 60.8 percent of the American GDP." (no date) GDP vs National Debt by Country |
As to why we would want to pay it off, I'll leave that for another post. But what would you think of a person with a credit card balance approaching their annual gross income, with interest taking a large portion of their net income? These people keep spending more than their income every year with the philosophy, in the future I'll be more prosperous and that will help me pay off this increasing debt. Smart? A wise financial approach?
Why have no legislators been able to sucessfully put forward a Constitutional Amendment forcing Congress to operate on a balanced budget? Isn't it time? Our federal government has proven they cannot be trusted with our tax dollars without certain "regulations" being placed upon them. It would seem a Constitutional Amendment forcing a balanced budget would be a good starting place.
The over $107 TRILLION in unfunded LIABILITIES should be the real sobering numbers.
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Debt Statistics
