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Thread: Financially speaking, do you know where the bottom is?

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Financially speaking, do you know where the bottom is?

    The US is $10 trillion in debt. Or is it? This article claims that the debt is much larger because certain items have been left out in the calculations, such as Medicare, Social Security and the drug benfits for seniors.

    According to this CNN article the National debt is closer to $53 trillion if we count what we owe to our own people and not just foreign debt.

    This got me to wondering how much that is in comparison to the GDP of the USA. Well, for 2007 it was approximately 13.8 trillion dollars. Hmmm, so we owe more than 4 times the GDP. That doesn't sound so bad on the surface. Then I started to wonder what the GDP was for the whole world.

    That would be $65 trillion.

    Yep, the USA owes almost as much money in debt as what exists on the entire planet. I understand that I am being overly simplistic here. The debt could be as much as $100 trillion. There are some very advanced mathematics involved in calculating the totals. No matter what, things are not looking very good for the financial future of America.

    The national debt does not include personal debt. How much personal debt are we carrying as a nation? I couldn't find a total number, but the ratio seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.50 of personal debt to every $1.00 of personal income in the US. This ratio mirrors the National debt to income ratio.

    So add it all up and you've got $100 trillion in debt in the US from debt sources both public and private.

    In a nutshell? We're fucked. WW3 is here and it isn't what we thought it was going to be. No bullets, no bombs, no tanks. We are going to be repossessed by our creditors. They certainly won't be able to collect any of their debts if they bomb us, so we are safe in that regard. Besides, the rest of the world's economy is dependent on America being a money making machine.

    Hopefully this machine has the ability to be repaired. Most likely it will be replaced.


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    Default Re: Financially speaking, do you know where the bottom is?

    WW3 is here and it isn't what we thought it was going to be. No bullets, no bombs, no tanks. We are going to be repossessed by our creditors. They certainly won't be able to collect any of their debts if they bomb us, so we are safe in that regard.
    historically speaking, creditor nations attempting to actually collect the debts owed to them by other nations, and the debtor nations repudiating those debts and attempting to retain / obtain vital assets via the use of military force, has been the direct cause of most major wars !!! It's also highly probable that the general 'aversion to violence' present among Americans today could change significantly as the number of Americans who are homeless, cold, and hungry steadily rises - as riots, violent crime etc. steadily rise etc.

    Hopefully this machine has the ability to be repaired. Most likely it will be replaced.
    I agree with you that the current 'system' will be replaced by something different. The big question of course is what sort of a new 'system' will be instituted. History would tend to indicate that fascism and communism have been popular 'choices' in the past.

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    Featured Member flickad's Avatar
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    Default Re: Financially speaking, do you know where the bottom is?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    historically speaking, creditor nations attempting to actually collect the debts owed to them by other nations, and the debtor nations repudiating those debts and attempting to retain / obtain vital assets via the use of military force, has been the direct cause of most major wars !!! It's also highly probable that the general 'aversion to violence' present among Americans today could change significantly as the number of Americans who are homeless, cold, and hungry steadily rises - as riots, violent crime etc. steadily rise etc.



    I agree with you that the current 'system' will be replaced by something different. The big question of course is what sort of a new 'system' will be instituted. History would tend to indicate that fascism and communism have been popular 'choices' in the past.
    No US government will ever get away with instituting communism, you guys are far too strongly capitalist to accept even a pale imitation (if you don't believe me, go to the Sarah Palin thread a little below this one and check out some of the outrage at the mere suggestion of socialised medical care, and god forbid anyone suggest the odd tax hike). I'd tend towards no on the fascism front too, but that's a weaker no (I'm sure Muslims or illegal immigrants would make a great scapegoat for any far-Right government in your country though- the mere mention of the latter gets plenty of Americans hot under the collar as is). Regardless, any government you wind up electing is stuck with the federal Constitution, so I doubt representative democracy's going anywhere in a hurry. I do, however, expect stronger regulation of banks and big business to be brought in, but that alone isn't communism.

    Our federal government's brought in small scale Keynesian policies (as well as fully guaranteeing all Aussie bank deposits and debts) in an attempt to stave off recession, though of course, no-one dares mention the word 'Keynes'.

    Also, what's with the quotation marks?
    Last edited by flickad; 10-19-2008 at 10:13 AM.

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    Default Re: Financially speaking, do you know where the bottom is?

    the quotation marks are roughly meant to indicate that America's 'system' is not really a system at all ... more like a collection of individual pieces that make a half-hearted attempt to work together. Aslo meant to indicate that the 'choices' available to Americans are not really free choices, but rather a list of pre-chosen options from which we are allowed to pick the lesser of the evils.

    As to recent changes in the Aussie government / economy, you'll see the full effect of those changes about 2010. The changes in the US government / economy are lagging by a year or so.

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