When will it stop … can it stop??

Chief Bones

Chief Bones

Forums Grumpy Old Man
$8,251,355,000,000.00 (that‘s 8 1/4 TRILLION dollars)… this is the figure for the National Debt as of Feb 28, 2006. That means that every man, woman and child’s share now stands at $27, 674.00 and because of decisions reached by president Bush, the budget went from a surplus of
$5, 600, 000, 000.00 (5.6 TRILLION) to record high shortfalls in less than one term in office. The debt continues to climb as a direct result of policies put in place by the President and a House and Senate dominated by the Republicans.


Because some of these policies were written as ‘bound’ legislation, portions of the legislation will be enforced after Bush leaves the Whitehouse no matter how ill advised or how expensive. The ONLY hope is for the Presidency, the House and the Senate to all become Democratic and for legislation to be passed which will kill the initial legislation. Barring this action, the National Debt will continue to spiral completely out of control.


The War in Iraq, the War on Terrorism, the tax rebate legislation and a hundred other policies continue to spend the taxpayers money as though it were water from a bottomless well. This is the furthest thing from the truth … because of many reasons, the amount of money entering the coffers from income tax continue to fall while the cost for durable goods and energy costs continue to spiral upward. I CAN NOT think of any better indicator that Bush’s leadership has led us down the primrose path on a slippery slide to unimagined levels of debt. If it were you or I who ran up bills without any chance of paying them off, we would have had to declare bankruptcy long ago.

One of the results of his policies are higher medical costs, gas prices at the pump that are almost double what they were when Bush took office, over 2,000 of our young people dead because of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, and a level of secrecy within the Whitehouse never observed before. To top all of this off, civil liberties are under attack because of legislation (Patriot Act) and fellow citizens are now subject to wire taps without benefit of a court order.

King George in all of his regal carriage, stands tall before the American people and states in stentorian splendor that Presidential rights trump the law of the land. He asserts that he already has power to order wire taps without having to get an order from a ‘secret’ court.


INCREASING DEBT, ILL ADVISED POLICIES, SPIRALLING COSTS, CONTINUING DEATHS OF OUR MILITARY, ADMINISTRATION STRIDENCY AND SECRECY ….. ALL OF THESE THINGS WILL BE USED TO WEIGH BUSH’S PRESIDENCY.


I DON’T BELIEVE BUSH WILL FARE VERY WELL WHEN THE SCALES OF HIS PRESIDENCY ARE VIEWED WITH THE HINDSIGHT OF HISTORY.

How about you - what is your perspective on this topic???
 
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Excuse me my friend

But are you having any anger management issues?

I think the tone of your posts are either too anxious or angry. Could you not share your views in a non-violent way? :)

I hope I am wrong!
 
I am against such rampant spending by the Bush administration but economics on such a large scale is so incredibly more complex than any of us millitary-type guys can really fully understand. You can't really say "well if I am in debt it's bad, I can't pay mastarcard! Wait, how bad is it if the government is in debt, then we must be doomed!"

It's not just a different ball game, there is no ball in the game.
 
Well, it may seem slumbering at the moment, but what happens if some of the creditors ask their money back? All of a sudden the US can't foot the bill and yes, countries can go bankrupt.
It just isn't good for your economy to have the image of somebody who wants things but can't pay for 'm. And paying by printing new money is something Germany did in the 1920's and we know what happened to them.
 
I read something somewhere that talks about how the national debt is mainly fluff, as we take in twice the amount as well as give out more to national and international programs than we actually "owe." So in other words, if we really wanted to, we could cut back and pay it off very quickly.

Not sure how true that is or where I read it. I'll have to do some digging.
 
You are a 'little' wrong.....

phoenix80 said:
Excuse me my friend

But are you having any anger management issues?

I think the tone of your posts are either too anxious or angry. Could you not share your views in a non-violent way? :)

I hope I am wrong!
Click to expand...
I'm not having anger management problems ... however .... I AM NOT happy either. What upsets me is the fact that I am on fixed income and my dollar doesn't go as far as it did when Bush first came to office.

Economics 101 tells me that a lot of the problems I am seeing now can be laid directly at the feet of King George. (No I don't like Bush and I don't apologise for that).

When a country goes from a monster surplus to a monster deficit in less than one term, then I believe a citizen has a right to feel a little upset about some of the administration policies and House and Senate partisanship which has placed us in this pinch.

Phoenix - the only thing I saw you do was to find fault with me ... I asked for your perspective on the topic ... not an appraisal of my feelings.....how about responding to the post itself and offer your feelings about the topic of the thread.

All I did was to list what many of my friends have stated in the last 4-5 years and to ask the rest of you how you feel about it ...

Is that so bad???
 
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That's the problem Chief Bones, Economics at that level is far far removed from what you learn in 101.

Although I don't like it, the situation isn't that bad.

What IS bad is the systems of medicare, medicaid, social security, perscription drug bennefits etc. that have the very real potential to be the rock around tied to the ankled of an economy thrown to the fishes. I am very worried about the possibility that THAT kind of deficit spending is going to make you laugh about being worried about these "little pennies" in comparison, if you can imagine what a cluster F**** that is going to be!
 
maybe we could pull in all those debts from other countries whose debts to us we pardoned...or maybe they could do that for us...boy would that be something!
 
I have already blown my fuze in a related topic that I started on the $500 billion budget deficit. So I will be short here.

http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19028

The blame for this $8 trillion does not fall on Bush alone. He may be the leader but congress approves his budgets. If I remember correctly, many democrats support this massive spending plans. In my opinion, everyone has their hand in the cookie jar, so everyone shares the blame.

There has not been any group that has stood up to the massive spending by the government. The dems will say a comment here or there, but nothing like blowing the budget out of the water like it should. As I said in my other thread, our government is living in a fanticy world. how can we cut taxes when we are over $400 billion in the red? Allen Greenspan seems to be the only one who got it right by warning the government over 6 times in 1 year about overspending.

The issue of this lack of financial fundamentals has seriously weakened my support for the Republicans. Once upon a time, the Republicans stood for a small federal government. My how the times have changed. I am seriously looking to become a libertarian. Although radical in some ways (name me a group that is not?), they realize that spending needs to be cut wayyyyyyyyy back. None of this petty $40 billion over 5 years that the President passed a month ago.

Chief, as far as the debit part of your post. I am with ya

Doody
 
en...these deficits are causing some long-term problems,
first, U.S borrows these money mostly from foreign countries by selling bonds to them (like Japan, the biggest buyer, China, holds like 300 billion U.S herself), U.S is sort of mortaging its future to foreign nations, that is a big dangerous i think, in a common sense way
second, big debt lefts u little opition but to try and pay them, the result is a lack of investing in infrastructure and stuff...

however, U.S economy is like an ocean, it takes awhile to heat it up and takes awhile to cool it down, a huge economy like U.S can take a couple year of huge deficit with no serious problem...hope the government can try clean it up a bit in the near future
 
But economics on that level are so different than what we think of as finances.

Say one day America trumps up a reason like, I don't know, China is unfairly monopolizing oil markets and as a punnishment decides to write off all the 300 billion in bonds to China... well that erases that overnight.

What, is the international bondsman going to come and repo America's car? Come on!

And that's just scratching the surface in just one off-the-wall theoretical scenario it's always much more subdued. It's all so complex that it isn't really as big of a deal as you would think if you look at it like you would your personal finances.

Again, not that it's a great thing, but it isn't like we're going to wake up one day to find the UN has evicted us and kicked every American out of their house into Canada for non-payment.
 
But C-C, although the metaphor of the ocean is nice, you do know that economics is all about "trust". If everybody believes things are doing okay, stock markets rise, interest rates go down, inflation goes down and everything is just fine and dandy.
The big stock crashes were caused by mass panick, everybody wanted to sell etc. Stock rates go down and the rest is history. Right now the US image economically is not fine. This will cause investors to back off and they'll watch the ship go down. So eventhough the effect on the domestic expenditures isn't big, once things go down the drain...... well, you get my drift.
Either the administration has to work very hard to get a better image or they have a very large multi-billion dollar problem.
 
Whispering Death said:
But economics on that level are so different than what we think of as finances.

Say one day America trumps up a reason like, I don't know, China is unfairly monopolizing oil markets and as a punnishment decides to write off all the 300 billion in bonds to China... well that erases that overnight.

What, is the international bondsman going to come and repo America's car? Come on!

And that's just scratching the surface in just one off-the-wall theoretical scenario it's always much more subdued. It's all so complex that it isn't really as big of a deal as you would think if you look at it like you would your personal finances.

Again, not that it's a great thing, but it isn't like we're going to wake up one day to find the UN has evicted us and kicked every American out of their house into Canada for non-payment.
Click to expand...

en..dude, economics do not work like that
if U.S writes off all bonds like paper in one day, U.S government will lose all credibility, and other nations like Japan, for fear of losing her own bonds, will sell off all U.S bonds at wutever low price,
believe me, U.S currency will collapse over night when 1000 billion bonds worth of U.S currency are sold off.
 
Ted said:
But C-C, although the metaphor of the ocean is nice, you do know that economics is all about "trust". If everybody believes things are doing okay, stock markets rise, interest rates go down, inflation goes down and everything is just fine and dandy.
The big stock crashes were caused by mass panick, everybody wanted to sell etc. Stock rates go down and the rest is history. Right now the US image economically is not fine. This will cause investors to back off and they'll watch the ship go down. So eventhough the effect on the domestic expenditures isn't big, once things go down the drain...... well, you get my drift.
Either the administration has to work very hard to get a better image or they have a very large multi-billion dollar problem.
Click to expand...

In U.S, another huge stock crash like the one is 1930s is not likely to happen because U.S government has a mature and detailed procedure and plan to fight that, through Federal Reserve agency and other banks.
they also have many early warning system and everything.

I am not too worried about that, but certainly, a huge deficit for many years and a huge debt are bad for market confidence.
 
chinese-canadian said:
en..dude, economics do not work like that
if U.S writes off all bonds like paper in one day, U.S government will lose all credibility, and other nations like Japan, for fear of losing her own bonds, will sell off all U.S bonds at wutever low price,
believe me, U.S currency will collapse over night when 1000 billion bonds worth of U.S currency are sold off.
Click to expand...
I know I know, I was throwing out something rediculous but that's the point. It isn't about paying bills or the repo man comes and takes your economy. While I am firmly against this deficit spending it isn't the worst problem we are facing right now.
 
It is a national security issue. Let China and Japan control so much U.S currency is dangerous. If they sell it off, they can literally cause the collapse of U.S currency and economy.
However, as I said before, this is no big deal for a huge economy like U.S if this problem does not last too long.
 
chinese-canadian said:
In U.S, another huge stock crash like the one is 1930s is not likely to happen because U.S government has a mature and detailed procedure and plan to fight that, through Federal Reserve agency and other banks.
they also have many early warning system and everything.

I am not too worried about that, but certainly, a huge deficit for many years and a huge debt are bad for market confidence.
Click to expand...
If you believe that one, have I got a bridge to sell you ... with the national debt being soooooo very high, the United States would have a very hard time shoring up the stock market enough to keep a collapse from happening even with the 'mature' and 'detailed procedures' of the Federal Reserve etc.

The 'normal' reaction to anything remotely resembling the crash of 29 is to immediately close the doors of the stock market and attempt to freeze the market at a level that can be addressed by the treasury etc. Where the problem arises is IF (BIG IF) ALL foreign sources were to sell off every bond and surety they hold at the same time, I'm not sure the safeguards that have been put into place to head off another crash would be adequate.

SOONER OR LATER THE BILL IS GOING TO BE TENDERED FOR REPAYMENT.

THIS IS THE REAL DANGER FROM HAVING A NATIONAL DEBT THAT IS AS HIGH AS THE ONE BEING CARRIED BY THE UNITED STATES.
 
Chief Bones said:
$8,251,355,000,000.00 (that‘s 8 1/4 TRILLION dollars)… this is the figure for the National Debt as of Feb 28, 2006. That means that every man, woman and child’s share now stands at $27, 674.00 and because of decisions reached by president Bush, the budget went from a surplus of
$5, 600, 000, 000.00 (5.6 TRILLION) to record high shortfalls in less than one term in office. The debt continues to climb as a direct result of policies put in place by the President and a House and Senate dominated by the Republicans.


Because some of these policies were written as ‘bound’ legislation, portions of the legislation will be enforced after Bush leaves the Whitehouse no matter how ill advised or how expensive. The ONLY hope is for the Presidency, the House and the Senate to all become Democratic and for legislation to be passed which will kill the initial legislation. Barring this action, the National Debt will continue to spiral completely out of control.


The War in Iraq, the War on Terrorism, the tax rebate legislation and a hundred other policies continue to spend the taxpayers money as though it were water from a bottomless well. This is the furthest thing from the truth … because of many reasons, the amount of money entering the coffers from income tax continue to fall while the cost for durable goods and energy costs continue to spiral upward. I CAN NOT think of any better indicator that Bush’s leadership has led us down the primrose path on a slippery slide to unimagined levels of debt. If it were you or I who ran up bills without any chance of paying them off, we would have had to declare bankruptcy long ago.

One of the results of his policies are higher medical costs, gas prices at the pump that are almost double what they were when Bush took office, over 2,000 of our young people dead because of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, and a level of secrecy within the Whitehouse never observed before. To top all of this off, civil liberties are under attack because of legislation (Patriot Act) and fellow citizens are now subject to wire taps without benefit of a court order.

King George in all of his regal carriage, stands tall before the American people and states in stentorian splendor that Presidential rights trump the law of the land. He asserts that he already has power to order wire taps without having to get an order from a ‘secret’ court.


INCREASING DEBT, ILL ADVISED POLICIES, SPIRALLING COSTS, CONTINUING DEATHS OF OUR MILITARY, ADMINISTRATION STRIDENCY AND SECRECY ….. ALL OF THESE THINGS WILL BE USED TO WEIGH BUSH’S PRESIDENCY.


I DON’T BELIEVE BUSH WILL FARE VERY WELL WHEN THE SCALES OF HIS PRESIDENCY ARE VIEWED WITH THE HINDSIGHT OF HISTORY.

How about you - what is your perspective on this topic???
Click to expand...




a well, it seems the world is in a state of de-evolution. lets just see whether it escapes?
 
My philosophy.

Republican president because I like their approach to foreign policy more. (ie. they have balls)

Democratic control congress because they are better and managing money. Not necessarily the economy, but the budget, deficit spending should not be allowed under any circumstances, especially not in a planned manner. I can see spending a few billion more than anticipated on say Katrina but planning to spend $526 billion more than you have is asking for trouble. I support Bush's foreign policy (you know, invading Afganhistan and Iraq, even if I don't agree with how he did it.) but the whole JSF fiasco and this money mis-management is driving me more and more into the anti-Bush collumn, again. Paying off the debt should be bumped up quite a few spots in our list of priorities, I think at this time it should be above education in all honest, with the F-22A and JSF we have spent enough money on our R & D that we can rest for say 10 years and not fall bahind our enemies and allies alike. It's just common sense to me, so much of our budget is going to paying the interest on our debt that in only a short time it would start paying off to have repaid our debt.

Also, outsourcing, really need to put an end to that. Oh sure we might be able to cut down costs by outsourcing but then we are taking our capita and shipping it overseas, once people start losing jobs here demand goes down and the companies really find themselves in a shitheap of their own making.
 
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