Posted on 05/09/2006 1:28:24 PM PDT by Stajack
The Dow was up 55.23 today, closing at 11,639.77. Today's close was the second highest ever for the Dow. The previous highest close was 11,582.43 on 1/13/2000. Today's close was also within 85 points of the all time Dow closing high, which was 11,722.98 on 1/14/2000. CNBC reports that the stock market got a late afternoon boost from the approval of tax cut extensions on Capitol Hill.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Unless I'm reading it wrong, this says it is: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
The budget deficit is estimated to be in the $300 - $350 billion dollar range this year. I think your link is referring to our current account trade deficit and is under the mistaken notion that this deficit somehow creates debt. It doesn't.
But doesn't a higher trade deficit mean that Americans are sinking more deeply into debt? Not at all. A trade deficit isn't debt. My young son, for example, received for Christmas several Chinese-made toys. These were bought with cash. If the Chinese toymakers invest their newly earned dollars in, say, that factory in Utah, the U.S. trade deficit rises but no debt is created. Neither I nor any other American owes any foreigner anything as a result of my purchase of toys from China and the corresponding Chinese purchase of equity in a company located in America.
Stop Worrying About the Trade Deficit
The author runs the Economics Dept. at George Mason University where Walter Williams teaches.
Your link is fixated on the amount of debt we owe but, at least that I could find, never identifies the amount of assets we own. A discussion about debt is meaningless if you do not consider assets. Our personal net worth is growing five times faster than our national debt.
Doesn't say anything about trade deficit, pretty sure this is the increase in federal budget deficit. Actually it says so: The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.95 billion per day since September 30, 2005!.
But doesn't a higher trade deficit mean that Americans are sinking more deeply into debt? Not at all. A trade deficit isn't debt. My young son, for example, received for Christmas several Chinese-made toys. These were bought with cash. If the Chinese toymakers invest their newly earned dollars in, say, that factory in Utah, the U.S. trade deficit rises but no debt is created. Neither I nor any other American owes any foreigner anything as a result of my purchase of toys from China and the corresponding Chinese purchase of equity in a company located in America. Stop Worrying About the Trade Deficit The author runs the Economics Dept. at George Mason University where Walter Williams teaches. Your link is fixated on the amount of debt we owe but, at least that I could find, never identifies the amount of assets we own. A discussion about debt is meaningless if you do not consider assets. Our personal net worth is growing five times faster than our national debt.
Justifying a huge debt on the basis of assets is ...well its like being overextended on your mortgage and getting a second mortage to make ends meet. It's ok as long as you can find someone to lend you the money to make the payments. This is not fiscally responsible. It reeks of a Ponzi scheme. If we can't afford to pay for the things we buy, we shouldn't be buying them.
I used a box like that as recently as the mid 90s. Social services job. Yikes. Lotus 1-2-3. Wordperfect 5.0.
Barron's has an editorial commentary pointing out the great disaster Social Security is becoming. From the annual reporting exercise of the trustees of Social Security and Medicare:
In 2005, the combined annual cost [of Medicare, Social Security retirement and Social Security disability programs] amounted to about 40% of total federal revenues and about 7% of gross domestic product. These costs are projected to double to 14% of GDP by 2040 and then to rise further to 17% of GDP in 2080.Clearly someone has to start changing our course...
Over the past four decades, the average share of total federal revenues as a percentage of GDP has been 18%, and has never exceeded 21%. Assuming the continued need to fund a wide range of other government functions, the anticipated growth in Social Security and Medicare costs would require that the total federal revenue share of GDP increase to wholly unprecedented levels.
I had one of those back in '88. Cost me $800. I was very, very cool.
That site you linked to sure is wrong. It says the public debt is $8.3 trillion. It's actually $4.8 trillion. It says the National Debt has increased $1.95 billion a day since Sept 30, 2005, it's actually closer to $1 billion per day. I could probably find more errors, but you get the idea.
Justifying a huge debt on the basis of assets is ...
Nobody is justifying the debt, just mentioning that household net worth has increased much faster.
...well its like being overextended on your mortgage and getting a second mortage to make ends meet.
No, it's like saying my debt increased by $2,000 and my house, stocks, cash increased by $10,000.
The keeper of that site may have an agenda. Do you have references for your numbers?
According to the book, Fast Food Nation: The McDonaldization of America, the peak of hamburger flipping jobs was in 1996. And WHO was POTUS?
Going to the US Treasury site:
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisms.htm
Comparing April 2006 with April 2005, the actual debt has increased from 7,704,041 (million) to 8,262,718 (million).
This would be an increase of 558677 (million). Thats only 1.53 billion per day.
Whew, that's much better. I should be able to sleep like a baby now.
Party on!!
No, he's confusing total debt with Public debt.
That's interesting. I didn't know anybody who owned forty acres of land when I was growing up in the sixties. Now I know all sorts of people who own large acreages.
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I don't know what to make of that, it is obvious that with no increase in land area and a huge increase in population and more land being taken by the Federal GOOBERment the percentage of people owning large tracts cannot possibly be increasing. There is more than one way to calculate wealth, if I look at things in a statistical way as the government does everything looks rosy, on the other hand if I make other comparisons things don't look rosy at all.
You're freakin nuts if you dont think technology is advancing. My computer today is about 10x faster than the one I had in 2000 and that was a new state of the art gaming computer vs a 2 year old computer right now. Cell phones are smaller and do more. Laptops are faster and lighter. Etc etc.
Plug it in 10 years and see how your CDs have done comparitively, or 5 years for that matter. It's easy to cherry pick on the biggest day of the biggest bubble the stock market had ever seen to compare. Just because the stock market was extremely overvalued in 1998-2000 doesn't mean that stocks are not the best investment over any long period of time.
The drive-by media is already preparing the spin. These numbers are not adjusted for inflation. If they were in constant dollars, the record will not have been set. I never remember constant dollars being applied to the Dow, especially during the reign of ex42. Then we heard of the new highs every half hour for 24. This is hardly in the news at all now.
Another batch of job layoffs and it should go over the top.
I beat you, I had a IBM PC 4.77MHZ 8088 chip, with 2 - 360K floppies, doubles sided of course; 64K Ram, Yes 64K Ram; IBM Basic, VisiCalc, & IBM Assembler, backed up by a Epson MX180 Dot Matrix Printer.
Cost in 1984 $ 6000.00 Plus.
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