Yea, that's sarcasm.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The only question I have is this — what is this $57 Trillion being measured as ? Right AMERICAN DOLLARS.
And what’s the value of American Dollars measured against REAL COMMODITIES these days?
So all washington has to do is to figure out how to seize all those household assets for redistribution. No problem, I’m sure everyone will be happy to go along with hat.
I don't want that!
read later
So let me get this straight. Their claim is that because our collective net worth can cover our collective debt that we’re not broke?
I assume this isn’t satire and wasn’t intended to be a joke. The only response I can post without getting censored by the moderators is: WTF?!
(I am not an economist. I did not major in economics. And I most certainly did not sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night.)
***** In a recent research piece Credit Suisse shows that America is far from being broke. ****
As my little niece said thirty five years ago when she was 5 years old, she wanted a toy.
Her mom said “we don’t have any money for it!”
My neice said...”Well write a check for it!”
“And these are NOT the droids you are looking for...”
And, what about the $100 trillion plus in unfunded liabilities? Or does that require additional garage sales?
America is not broke, but the US government is.
I'm mystified. If total government debt including obligations of the states is $12T why does the debt ceiling have to be raised above $14.3T for the Federal Government alone ?
Also there's the small matter of the Net Present Value of the future obligations of the Federal Government Social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal pensions etc etc ) currently estimated at anything between $48T and $78T. ( Future Pension obligations of the States and Municipalities of course are not included). The Federal Government is a bit like Enron, the nasty bits are kept off the balance sheet.
re: ““Some of our senior politicians and market pundits say it every day: “America is broke.””
This is the essential lie. No one is saying that America as a people are broke - IT IS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THAT IS BROKE!!
It is the government that is committing us to debt that it cannot pay - because it is the government that is over spending!
During the French Revolution the General Assembly confiscated the property of the church to finance the needs of the “people”. Too bad they discovered too late that they could not easily liquidate or sell this property as there were insufficient buyers and money. So they just ended up printing money instead, Assignats, and we ended up with Madame Dufarge, the guillotine and Napoleon.
Also, some estimate our unfunded liabilities are near $100 TRILLION. Not sure how that factors into the discussion.
schu
As long as YOU have dollars to spend on ME everything will be fine!
So give it up you tight was sons of b!t@hes! the government says YOU OWE ME!
Sarc/off
Now THAT is frightening. What those charts imply is that if the government confiscated all OUR money they would be just fine? Am I getting that right?
This analysis only compares *current* debt to current net worth. It does not consider the future liablities of Medicare and Social Security. It also does not consider the devistating economic effects of seizing large parts of people’s net worth to pay off the debt.
FDR and LBJ’s ponzi scams are not longer sustainable. This is what people mean when they say the country is “broke.”
So we discover yet again why the banks are all in trouble: We can’t be broke, WE STILL HAVE CHECKS!!!
Our interest on the national debt right now is $215 billion, historically a low payment. However, the low payment is because much of it is at 0% interest, and that will not hold out much longer as the dollar value declines and inflation starts taking hold.
The average debt payment has been around $400 billion on %5-7 trillion in debt. We are now at $14 trillion in debt.
Using nominal interest rates we could easily see our interest payment hit $800 billion without breaking a sweat. Toss in slightly higher interest rates and $1.6 trillion payments could be possible.
We take in about $2 trillion in income taxes. Subtract out the debt payments and subtract out the additional debt we add every year and we are broke. We are in the hole.
Credit Suisse is right - America is not broke - it’s people are.
Employing Credit Suisse logic I come to the following.
America is governed by the people, therefore People = Govt.
The government owes many foreign banks more money than we can pay so the government is broke, yet we know People = Govt.
So if People = Govt. = Broke, then logically People = Broke
We are broke, so we should declare bankruptcy, and the govt will bail us out!!