Posted on 03/08/2011 8:18:37 AM PST by Michel12
Debt, debt and more mounting debt is plaguing countries around the globe. In this U.S., states across the country face a collective $125 billion shortfall for fiscal 2012, while Congress is facing a budget gap nearly 10 times that size. PIMCO founder and co-CIO Bill Gross has previously said that if the United States were a corporation, no one in their right mind would lend us money. For the last decade, we’ve been “relying on the kindness of strangers” to help cover our debts, he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. By “strangers” he is referring to our foreign counterparts, like China for example. Basically, for years Americans have spent their hard-earned dollars on less-expensive Chinese made goods. With great gratitude, China turned around and used all those dollars to buy up U.S. Treasuries and other dollar-denominated assets. But now after years of reckless spending, America’s debt level is nearing a breaking point and can no longer rely on foreign capital as a last resort. “When a country reaches a certain debt level, confidence in that country’s ability to repay that debt becomes jeopardized,” says Gross, citing the work of Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart in This Time Is Different.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
They are likely correct.
Why do I think it will be the people who pay the freight (ie., working taxpayers) who will suffer falling living standards, and not the parasite class (ie., the Democrat party “base”)?
bfl
Congress is in denial. The Democrats think we don’t have a problem and the Republicans think our problem can be fixed with a few modest spending cuts.
There ain’t no animal to save the politicians this time around.
They will once again kick the can down the road until somebody with guts - somebody like Scott Walker - finally puts his foot on the can and says, "It stops here and now."
Congress is in denial. The Democrats think we don’t have a problem and the Republicans think our problem can be fixed with a few modest spending cuts.
There ain’t no animal to save the politicians this time around.
Congress is in denial. The Democrats think we don’t have a problem and the Republicans think our problem can be fixed with a few modest spending cuts.
There ain’t no animal to save the politicians this time around.
They will kick the can down the road until there are so many other countries in the same boat that they can all get together and secretly agree on a Big Lie that will keep that can kicking on down the road for another generation.
The socialist politicians will eventually declare a WWII style emergency 'bond drive' and start collecting private savings and retirement accounts, etc as a downpayment on the nat'l debt, depending upon public pressure and appealing to patriotic sense of duty.
The parasites will never be asked to give.
Scripture tells us, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”
I submit to you, that moderate republicans (rino’s) are more dangerous than the liberal left.
At least with the liberal left, you know your enemy.
RINO’s can do so much more damage before folks realize they are not who they appear to be.
This is the same thing Jesus eluded to in scripture.
Just sayin
I think that's simplistic. If politicians don't give the voters what they demand, they're voted out and replaced by some that will. American voters have demanded welfare state goodies for years: social security, Medicare, Medicaid, Taj Mahal schools with armies of overpaid administrators and teachers, etc. They've elected politicians who delivered them.
I look at my own little town. We're building a lavish new high school thanks to a huge bond issue people voted for expecting "rich property owners" to pay for. We have a redevelopment agency, fed by a state tax dollar "grant" that's driving poor people out of their homes to benefit developers. Our new multi-million dollar library is beautiful. It was mostly financed with federal "grant" money.
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL). Several generations of Americans, both voters and their elected politicians, have deluded themselves into believing there can be. But the bill always has to be paid one way or another.
They are likely correct.
The Soviet and Eastern European Communists tyrants figured the same thing.
They were correct.
If the government issued debt the way a private company did, it would be OK. Debt issuance is a valid tool to fund capital projects with a life span exceeding the term of the note. As long as the debt has a sustainable dedicated revenue stream to pay it off, then a moderate “deficit” on an annual basis is a legitimate budget philosophy. For example, our town did a road expansion; the cost of the expansion was about 70% of our annual operating budget (excluding capital projects already funded). It’s not economical to pay for it out of current income, as the taxpayers cannot afford the hit, even if on a one-time basis. But spread out over 20 years when we get a road forever, bonding the road makes sense.
The federal government is issuing debt willy-nilly; it has no rational basis to what is being funded and is for all practical purposes, unlimited. I believe financial gurus have a term for that: “just plain nuts.”
The media has been purposely misleading the public in favor of their leftist ideology for more than a half century.
The result - a disfunctional electorate unable to discern when their pockets are being picked and their childrens' future stolen.
“We can’t rely on foreign capital to finance our annual deficit for the simple reason that it’s just not there.”
They aren’t financing that much of it anymore. Most of the deficit financing now is the Fed buying treasuries.
That is essentially what happened to Weimar Germany and Austria after WWI leading up to the 1923 collapse. Citizens rushed to buy government 'war bonds' as a safe haven against other dwindling investments, only to have the war bonds collapse in value as the mark and kroner rapidly depreciated in value as the governments printed more and more money to cover their debts. The result being that all who invested in the war bonds lost those savings through collapse of purchasing power as well as becoming destitute in the process.
Well we've certainly seen examples of this in Ted Kennedy, Boxer, Schumer, Thurman, Fenstein, Reid, Pelosi, Waters, Waxman, SJ Lee, Sanders, Kucinich, H.Clinton.....the list goes on.
Simplistic? Maybe. But in so many cases, voters cannot vote them out of office due to the deep entrenchment of the incumbent.
Thats as likely a scenario for the present as any.
Where’s Hillary’s reset button?
“I’ll probably be OK until my ammo runs out..... “
Same here, I’ve got piles. And I’ll probably go cannibal.
But I’ll talk to my `meals’ first and make sure they aren’t conservatives.
In any event, if life is really toxic, and I’m shot (say) gnawing on Alec Baldwin’s shin bone, then I’ll come back as a zombie. So I’ve got that going on too.
Let’s turn those frowns upside down, whaddya say?
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