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The National Debt: A Cheery Subject . . .

  • Thread starter BigBella
  • Start date
Here is a great graphic representation of the US debt -- its $114,500,000,000,000 in unfunded liabilities, all set in crisp one hundred dollar bill increments. Perhaps a few of you have already seen it; but it is worth taking a second look, especially considering the almost transcendental numbers involved.

Where's my drink and gold bullion?

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/?source=patrick.net
 
I think we should just RAISE TAXES and start paying off our debt...keep everything the way it is but RAISE TAXES. Once citizens see the real costs of all the services they're getting, let Congress trim off things that the public doesn't want to pay for. This way we don't get further in debt, start paying it off, and we take a more realistic look at what government should and should not do.

But I bet they'll raise the debt limit and go on as if we can keep it up...until next year :yawn:
 
I think we should just RAISE TAXES and start paying off our debt...keep everything the way it is but RAISE TAXES. Once citizens see the real costs of all the services they're getting, let Congress trim off things that the public doesn't want to pay for. This way we don't get further in debt, start paying it off, and we take a more realistic look at what government should and should not do.

But I bet they'll raise the debt limit and go on as if we can keep it up...until next year :yawn:

Frankly, I think pension reform is the primary way to go. Too many public officials in San Francisco, for example, are retiring on ninety percent of their original salaries; and those unfunded liabilities were around two billion in NY State ten years ago and are now closer to twelve billion.

Soon, many cities will have little choice but declare Chapter 14 bankruptcy (that of a municipality) to escape debt, as the city of Vallejo, California did a short time ago. The debt goes along with the unfunded pensions.

I am afraid that simply raising taxes is tantamount to giving the goverment -- a drug addict already, yet another hit of crack -- and during a recession is no great idea; and there are no assurance that it will go to paying down the debt and not to so asinine government program to study homosexuality among seagull populations -- an actual project . . .
 
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just way too many things going on, national debt caused by synergistic effects--raising taxes against the middle/lower class, entitlement/pension programs, legal/illegal outsourcing, etc etc etc....gotta address multiple problems and not go out guns ablazing against one issue and make it sound as it is sole culprit for the crisis (which i bet they're going to do, just to get the people off their back)

just looked at the link.....OOOOOOOOOH MY PUMPERNICKEL!
 
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Wow........ How many N. hamata "red hairy" plants could I buy with that much money?
 
I think we should just RAISE TAXES and start paying off our debt...keep everything the way it is but RAISE TAXES. Once citizens see the real costs of all the services they're getting, let Congress trim off things that the public doesn't want to pay for. This way we don't get further in debt, start paying it off, and we take a more realistic look at what government should and should not do.

But I bet they'll raise the debt limit and go on as if we can keep it up...until next year :yawn:


And cut spending for a LOT of unneccesary things.
 
It's a simple idea, but executing it is a whole different ball game. Just as consumers were forced to reign in spending over the last several years, so the government needs to stop talking about reduced spending and start acting on it. We have been overextended for years, and quite frankly, a step in the right direction will at least be some progress.

I am afraid raising taxes is not the popular approach... these politicians care about votes, and one can assume that raising taxes is probably the most effective way to piss off a large contingent of voters. Bottom line... politicians very rarely have the welfare of the public in mind... they make decisions based on what will get them re elected, what will increase their fame, and what will increase their pay.
 
Although this problem is huge, and I feel that every American (heck human, maybe) should do their best to grasp the issue, the visualization is a bit hyped.

Some of those figures they throw around like unfunded liabilities, are pretty open ended. Really just reasons to make a pile of cash look taller than the tallest buildings. Regardless, piles of cash don't really put the real problem into perspective.

There are real things that symbolize the national debt, the over-spending as a country that we have enjoyed, and they are larger than those buildings. The thousands of acres of cleared rainforest in the Amazon and southeast Asia, the Pacific gyre, the Gulf of Mexico, even the Fukushima incident is connected to our own great corporations that we buy light bulbs and energy from. Yes there is no money-based solution to our problem, it's a human problem, a huge problem.

Economies are sort of like the water cycle, except money doesn't create life necessarily. Water does. Bankers are like lakes, politicians are like dams, and the rain that feeds it all is actually the unimaginably large amount of resources that we borrow for imaginary numbers every day, every year.

I await congress's decision, or indecision, I await the following days. Though with no light-hearted expectations of my own.

Wow........ How many N. hamata "red hairy" plants could I buy with that much money?

Many many more than actually exist on Earth.
 
Some of those figures they throw around like unfunded liabilities, are pretty open ended. Really just reasons to make a pile of cash look taller than the tallest buildings. Regardless, piles of cash don't really put the real problem into perspective.

Yes, there are many factors involved; that was only a graphic representation; and the unfunded liabilities are a very legitimate concern -- considering that the majority of pension programs in the US are empty coffers (as empty as the mythological "lock-box" of social security) and only now are they considering programs that would utilize 401K types of investment products for those on pension programs.

I know of pensioners in San Francisco, quite a few in fact (both retirees from police and fire) who are collecting more in retirement than when they were as public servants; and if you think they are some great exception, you'd be terribly wrong. One fellow I knew who cashed out his "sick days" last year (a neighbor) received a check for 250K from the city of SF -- and he certainly wasn't alone.

The same is true across the country -- and the unfunded liabilities (in terms of pension programs) have multiplied several times in the course of the last decade -- 2 billion in NY State (as I had mentioned earlier) to over 12 billion now. A sixfold increase of anything is not sustainable . . .
 
  • #10
This email I just received with a picture of Warren Buffet eating a parfait kinda make me chuckle, as I feel it really applies to the core of the problem here that hasn't been mentioned much in this thread. That problem being our members of government in general.

Its goes.....

This is A Great Idea!!!!

ThisisAG.jpg


Midwestern tycoon Warren Buffett, pictured here adorably eating a parfait,
presented his quick and easy solution to Americas debt problem today on CNBC:
I could end the deficit in five minutes.

You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than three
percent of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.


And on a side note, I watched this ridiculous conspiracy video pretty much acting like a marketing ploy, HOWEVER, some of the things it touches on are kinda sorta true, and it provides some quite interesting history on us defaulting and the world moving away from the dollar being the world's currency...If anyone's interested....

StansberryResearch
 
  • #11
Bend over and grab your ankles hopeful future retirees... A "compromise" has been reached! :lol:
 
  • #12
Haha a deal, not a slution, was made!

Forgive me but can someone explain how we make cuts to reduce long term debt but approve, in the short term, a 900 billion increase in our debt ceiling? Am I missing something ???
 
  • #13
Haha a deal, not a slution, was made!

Forgive me but can someone explain how we make cuts to reduce long term debt but approve, in the short term, a 900 billion increase in our debt ceiling? Am I missing something ???

No, you're not missing a thing. It's three-card Monte and US political theater; and there is an ingrained constituency for every asinine program, from top to bottom, slated for cuts. There are no real cuts, just a slightly-slowed swelling of the $46,153.04 each of the three hundred million of us "owe" as the share of national debt. Hope you like gyros and Spanakopita ; Greece isn't too far away.

I think I am going to hit up my eight year old niece for her share this afternoon . . .

 
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  • #14
Its all disgusting.

Wish I was old enough to be racking in some of those pensions I've heard mentioned and have personally heard of from retiree's....

I recognize all major powers have issues similar to us, but a nice tropical island somewhere NOT in the US is not looking too shabby IMO...

Good luck with your niece :)
 
  • #15
A pension? Good luck with all THAT! :lol:

My job already cancelled ours years ago due to some regulation on pensions Bush put through, my uncles was stolen by his companies CEO and my moms was cut in half. A pension is a pipedream. And a 401K is simply a pension that even more people have access to ripping off.

We're likely not gonna get social security either even though we've paid in all these years and will continue to. But if all goes really well maybe I can work at my machine until I keel over dead at 72!

Not gonna say what Boehner looks like he's doing here... :D

debtdealorgasm.jpg
 
  • #16
The new deal is okay, but, not generating any revenue is a big problem. Cutting and not generating any revenue is going to hurt us in the long run. I wish Obama would just stop with this compromise crap and do what he thinks needs to be done. I'm not saying that because I like Obama's viewpoint - in fact, I sort of agree more with Boehner and Republicans (except that the Bush tax cuts should be revoked and military spending needs more serious, deeper cuts). But, if I have a President, he needs to lead in times like this, not compromise. Compromising has its place, but, not in a time like this. It almost cost us big time and in the end might be less effective.
 
  • #17
America, oh America.


How proud I am to be one of you.


What have we become?
 
  • #19
If only Americans weren't too fat and lazy to get out and riot....
 
  • #20
"What have we become?" A few Kalamata olives short of Greece . . .

I know what you meant, but I think you meant to say Rome.

If only Americans weren't too fat and lazy to get out and riot....

It'll sure be interesting once the Coke and Pepsi supply finally runs dry...
 
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