I was going to put this in the News of Other Interest Forum, but this issue is very political since the US government and its citizens are spending way too much money on everything these days. Oh yeah, each American owes $145,000 just in promises made by the federal government. Doesn't that make you have that fuzy feeling all over?

Experts warn that heavy debt threatens American economy
The Associated Press

You owe $145,000. And the bill is rising every day.

That's how much it would cost every American man, woman and child to pay the tab for the long-term promises the U.S. government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor.

And it's not even taking into account credit card bills, mortgages — all the debt we've racked up personally. Savings? The average American puts away barely $1 of every $100 earned.

Our profligate ways at home are mirrored in Washington and in the global marketplace, where as a society America spends $1.9 billion more a day on imported clothes and cars and gadgets than the entire rest of the world spends on its goods and services.

A new Associated Press/Ipsos poll finds that barely a third of Americans would cut spending to reduce the federal deficit and even fewer would raise taxes.

If those figures seem out of whack to you, if they seem to cut against the way you learned to handle money, if they seem like a recipe for a national economic nightmare — well, then, at least you're not alone.

A chorus of economists, government officials and elected leaders both conservative and liberal is warning that America's nonstop borrowing has put the nation on the road to a major fiscal disaster — one that could unleash plummeting home values, rocketing interest rates, lost jobs, stagnating wages and threats to government services ranging from health care to law enforcement...

READ MORE

this isn't just a problem in the US either....credit debt is something that pretty much all the western nations are dealing with.


but as a country...the US has racked up this debt in frightning speed. am i right in thinking that Clinton came very close to paying off all of the US's foriegn debt? and then with the war on terror and the war in Iraq that surplus turned into a massive debt?
and then of course to keep voters happy you have to promise them things...tax cuts ETC wich put you even more in the hole


here in NZ the main opposition party seems to be trying to attack the government for having TOO MUCH money in surplus...now is it just me, or is that ludicrous? surely it is better to run a country at a profit?
more money for healthcare and social programmes, education etc?

Almost all of our national "debt" is not owed to foreign countries, it is to our citizens in the form of bonds.

That being said, got to love a system by which we reward the short-term 2 year plan with elections every other year while having no control over the implications that come 10 years down the road when all of the persons who created the problem are long out of office.

We are 50 billion away from 8,000,000,000,000

Hi,


U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 28 Aug 2005 at 06:25:42 AM GMT is:
$ 7 , 9 4 2 , 1 8 3 , 2 6 8 , 4 2 9 . 3 3

The estimated population of the United States is 296,847,179
so each citizen's share of this debt is $26,755.12.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.70 billion per day since September 30, 2004!




It Should not be too much of a Worry ...... there are still many factors in favour of USA right now.... Dollar earns itself Dollars ....... Until some big Countries start to shed Dollar as their Base Currencies and take up Gold or Other things Dollar will keep on Earning itself ...... Until these Countries use Dollar as their base Currency they will not let Dollar or US Economy go down because they go with it ......... there are a few other Factors as well ....... Most of the US's foriegn debt is to Countries like Saudi Arabia , Japan and China which will be written off in the Form of Arms and other Business deals .. and they never have to pay it back.

Originally Posted by Whispering Death

Almost all of our national "debt" is not owed to foreign countries, it is to our citizens in the form of bonds.

Foreign Debt also make a Big Chunck of it ............ But Most of it to Federal Reserve Bank and to other government accounts .... like One Government Agency ows to other Agency.............

Citizens ? are we talking about Public Debt ? ........


The following graph shows how the National Debt has grown year by year since 1940 in actual dollar amounts, ...... without taking Inflation into Account


National Debt Corrected for Inflation



Source:
Bureau of Public Debt

Debt Clock

Peace
-=SF_13=-

yeah i was going to say, i dont know a lot abt it but i know that a heck of a lot of your debt is to foreign countries,
hell most countries owe most of thier debt to other countries

With that ammount of debt America does not have a problem, the people that lent it to America have the problem.

Originally Posted by chewie_nz

but as a country...the US has racked up this debt in frightning speed. am i right in thinking that Clinton came very close to paying off all of the US's foriegn debt? and then with the war on terror and the war in Iraq that surplus turned into a massive debt?
and then of course to keep voters happy you have to promise them things...tax cuts ETC wich put you even more in the hole

Clinton did balance the budget, but the $236 billion budget surplus did little to quel the massive amount of debt (5 or 6 trillion dollars) the US had at the time. As for Bush's tax cuts you mentioned, I never supported the cut. If you read the article in full, I am one of the 1% who favor raising taxes and curring government services in an effort to take on debt. I am in favor of just cutting spending across the board with the way our government spends money.

Originally Posted by Whispering Death

That being said, got to love a system by which we reward the short-term 2 year plan with elections every other year while having no control over the implications that come 10 years down the road when all of the persons who created the problem are long out of office.

I agree with you Whispering Death. Medicare and Social Security are the 2 biggest entitlement programs the US has. For any politician to to suggestion cutting those problems equals death to ones career. It is sad that no one has the to tackle this problem.

personally i never trust a politician who promises tax cuts. the first thing that goes through my mind is "ok then, what service is going to suffer for it"

i would rather pay a high rate of tax and have access to free healthcare, free education, a competant police force etc etc.

The US Government is Constitutionly supposed to provide for National Defense and not run a social and medical business. That was one way President Clinton was able to trim the budget, by cutting Defense. It's always more expensive to re-arm than to stay armed with cutting edge weapons.