Posted on 07/06/2015 11:52:23 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
“With $20 trillion in national debt, close to $200 trillion when unfunded liabilities in entitlement programs are taken into account, can the U.S. be that far behind from Greece?”
Unlike Greece, which can’t print its own money, the United States can and does. The money supply, the amount in circulation, has almost quadrupled since Obama took office. They will simply keep printing money until it has no value, but the debts are “paid.” Those of us who saved money are the ones losing.
Yes. Agreed. We have that advantage over Greece.
We can produce our own heroin.
But how long can that last?
I’m certainly not defending the EURO experiment.
However, when you borrow and spend more than your country brings in
bad things are going to happen.
“But how long can that last?”
The Soviet Union made it from 1917 to 1989. We technically went communist in 2008. If we’re following the Soviet trajectory then we’ll have about 70 years to go and about fifty million untimely deaths.
Just substitute public pension systems for Greece for future headlines in the USA. Overpromised and underfunded with liabilities that simply cannot be paid without bankrupting states, cities, municipalities.
Here’s the problem: Greece still needs more money. Bankruptcy protects you from creditors but makes it difficult to borrow money immediately.
How does bankruptcy, in and of itself, fix anything?
Bankruptcies destroy, they don’t create. Creation, if it ever occurs, take place after the bankruptcy.
PS - Thanks for the uninvited, unwarranted and unnecessary lecture.
True enough.
When the credit card is declined for a prolonged period, one is faced with the reality of “work or starve”.
What Greece needs is a right-wing military dictator.
I agree.
Jamal’s available.
Re: “If Greece is not bailed out...Wall Street investors...worry about the entire world economy collapsing as creditors flee the sovereign debt of one fiscally bloated nation after another.”
At last. Now I get it.
For two years I’ve been waiting for someone to explain why Greece - a country with a GDP about the size of Iowa - is such a big deal.
I do understand that Greece has racked up a huge debt. Is it like $200 billion? And the debt is (was?) held mostly by large European banks?
But, really, if Greece defaults, can’t the $15 trillion European Union just swallow this bitter unpaid debt pill and move on?
But it’s not just Greece. It’s the question of who will bail out ALL the other debt scofflaws!
Thanks for posting.
I’m familiar with the author - Stephen Moore - but this is the first lucid explanation I’ve heard about the genuine fear I sense in the international financial community.
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