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$21 Trillion in debt

H

Hay hay hay

Well-known Member
Normally when times are good and you are making money, it is time to pay off some debts. Right?

Well we hear every day that the economy is booming, unemployment is 4.1% (lowest in many years).

Today the federal debt just hit $21 Trillion. This is not a red or blue problem...it is America's problem, and mostly our children's problem. And I am not hearing any solutions or painful measures to fix it.

And us old Geezers..you and me...we are a large part of the problem.

Using the 2015 data:

Total Expenses $3.8 Trillion
Partially made up of these expenses:
Medicare and healthcare $986 Billion (about 26% of the total)
Social Security and Disability $895 Billion ( about 24%of the total)
Military & Defense $598 Billion (about 16%)
Veterans Benefits $170 Billion ( 4%)
Education $70 Billion ( 2%)
Unemployment 36 Billion (1%)

Interest on the debt $229 Billion (7%)

Seems like we are rushing headlong into a plane crash.
My medicare bills are certainly adding up my share to the problem.
 
Hay Hay Hay,

One significant problem is most folks do not understand the math behind that debt. Also, it is unfortunate that million, billion, and trillion rhyme.

They should be using scientific notation, just to show exactly how many zeroes there are behind the 21 number.

D>
 
I never saw a dime of it the last guy ran it up 8 trillion on social programs and nothing to show for its not the people signing those checks its the elected a-holes on both sides
 
As Jim Rogers has been saying for several years all this debt all over the World will never be paid off.Look at the out cry couple years ago when Congress just tried to hold the budget the same for
two years in a row.People on all sides of the political spectrum want 'Free' stuff from the Gov't and any politician that tries to put the brakes on spending will be out of office in a hurry.Its pedal to the metal toward the financial cliff the crash ain't going to be pretty.My personal opinion those with Gold, Silver,land and useful things will be the best situated but it won't be fun for anyone.I look at my Gold and Silver the same as a fire insurance policy,hope I never need to use it but if the need arises I'll be very gold to have it.
 
Glad someone's thinking about it. The word is our economy is going strong but I think it's like a neighbor living high on the hog on credit cards. How good would the economy have been in the past couple decades if the checkbook had to balance at the end of each year? And why are we handing out foreign aid all over the place?

On a brighter note our country has lots of oil and coal- maybe some can be sold to pay some of the debt.
 
Social security should not be in the above figures. We all were forced to contribute and then they put it in the general account and spent it! Will never get back what was paid in.
 
I heard a lot about debt and deficit for 8 years, justified no doubt. I am not hearing much from those congressmen now. Neither party is worth a crap, they do what is best for their own interests.
 
Our local newspaper has a daily gripe column where people can email their gripes and paper will print them. Saw this one a while back:
"Only when corporations and white, racist, greedy nnalert start paying their share will our country's fiancial problems be solved".
 
(quoted from post at 15:45:05 03/20/18) Best idea would be to sell Federally owned land to private people,put it to a good use and collect real estate taxes off of it.
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Several things wrong with that idea TF.

First it makes sense. Just can't have any sense in government from any party.

Second if they did that people might just drill for oil on it. That might make us not need from sources outside the US. You should know by now the only way we are supposed to become independent of the need of foreign oil is to reduce consumption to zero.

third, if they collect taxes off it they will find something to waste it on.

Rick
 
Social Security would be fine had Lyndon Johnson had not raided Social Security to fund the Vietnam war. Been better if the war had never happened.
 
(quoted from post at 15:59:22 03/20/18)
(quoted from post at 15:45:05 03/20/18) Best idea would be to sell Federally owned land to private people,put it to a good use and collect real estate taxes off of it.
Click to expand...

Several things wrong with that idea TF.

First it makes sense. Just can't have any sense in government from any party.

Second if they did that people might just drill for oil on it. That might make us not need from sources outside the US. You should know by now the only way we are supposed to become independent of the need of foreign oil is to reduce consumption to zero.

third, if they collect taxes off it they will find something to waste it on.

Rick
Click to expand...
amen to that
 
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-20/stockman-fears-washingtons-fiscal-folly-will-spark-yield-shock-biblical-proportions

This article says the same as you or worse. I see it now as nnalert trying to drive inflation to outrun the debt. I don't know if this is the right answer but it seems to be what is happening, tariffs and a trade war can and will drive up prices along with some other actions that have appeared that way. 2 long wars and a recession isn't a good thing, like large medical bills and buying a farm when the 80's hit.
 
The real issue is of course, that we may well be in the best economic situation we can hope for, and still racking up even more debt. And I just do not think nnalert has a plan, just trying to keep promises to people that voted for him.
 
There is land owned by all levels of government that needs to be sold. Get it on the tax rolls. Ron
 
Selling assets that belong to the PEOPLE(land) to pay debts is ridiculous. The concept of govt owned land, being sold to private parties goes back to monarchy times, and before. That's what we fought to get rid of!

As for the debt, there's plenty of blame to go around. Most voters can't think beyond next month's rent payment. The idea of a govt default isn't even on the radar. Until it is. We - will - default. Projections at this point are around 2033, or if things continue to get worse, 2028-ish. Short answer - we've got 10-15 years to solve our debt that has been growing for more than 40 years.

Salad days for those who are spending today, is going to be penury for our kids. They should be rising up in indignation and cutting us old folks off now.
 
About a year ago, household debt in the USA was about $13 trillion ..... so it would likely be more today, let's say $15 trillion. So while we all criticize government for being in excessive debt, we seem to be holding our own in the same category (up here in Canada too of course) ..... and don't forget, a lot of that government debt money is paying for goods and services that the public is receiving. I guess we all should look in the mirror before being too critical of an agency that is providing things like military defense, public education, and a lot of health care, etc.
Household Debt May 2017
 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelfoster/2017/11/08/federal-debt-is-reaching-20-trillion-and-i-dont-care/#6de89af632ba
 
Agreed.

It costs a great deal of money to pay able bodied people to not work.

We are long past the point of no return.

There are NO politically acceptable solutions.

Dean
 
I really agree with the idea that selling off public land as being ridicules. It won't help much if they get paid for it and chances are the folks now in charge will give to some other billionaires and never pay a dime on the debt. Many of those folks out west want government land to graze cattle but don't want to pay. Letting them have it will cost cattle farmers who do have to pay for land and taxes to compete with people who will be pretty much free grazing.
 
Today the federal government owns 640,000,000 acres. 640 million acres of mostly useless, arid, desert that will support one cow for every 20 acres and no water. If the govt sold it all for $1000/acre that is $640 billion dollars about 3% of the $21 trillion debt. If it sold for $2000/acre it would pay off 6% of the debt. So now that we have sold the family jewels, what will we sell to pay off the rest of the 94% of our debt? Incidentally, real estate taxes on ag property are minimal and go to the state, not the federal govt.

I am being pretty abundant here on western land values. Ted Turner just bought 26,300 acres in Nebraska for $10 million or $390/acre and and a different buyer just closed on 77000 acres in Wyoming for $20.9 million or $271/acre.

And the money for USA oil, goes to the company that found and drilled for oil..not the federal government.

I hope there is a rational and realistic solution to our debt crisis, but it will not be a painless remedy.
 
So we owe 21 trillion.
But who do we owe it to.


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So the next time someone tells you Social Security is going broke just remind them it is really not broke.
It is just the U.S. government defaulting on a loan.

By the way China and Japan want to loan us money.
It allows our dollar to be worth more then their money.
This allows their products to be artificially cheap in our country.
 
The gov't is squandering the assets on public land.I go thru the Shenandoah National Park right much and I see thousands probably millions in all of top quality timber left to die and the trees fall over an rot.This is a total waste of a valuable resource plus as the dead trees and brush piles up a fire will break out sooner or later and sometimes they burn for days.
Private ownership of land is the foundation this country was built on and in the case of the Shenandoah National Park the state and Federal gov't basically stole the land from the rightful
owners back in the 1930's anyway.
 
The politicians hope we are all to immersed in our hobbies (like cutting wood) to pay any attention to our obligation as citizens to vote for quality people with sound judgement to run our country.
 
Indeed it is very complicated, but as nnalert once threatened to default, we would be screwing ourselves. Also interesting to know the Chinese owe us money as well as many other countries. I think to accrue the amount of debt we will need to go forward, we must sell lots of treasury bonds and at higher interest just to get the sales. Interest rates will compete with stock dividends, possibly producing competition for investment currency. All this could become very hairy for those that can invest. I don't think I will have any issues.
 
I remember the eighty's. I was paying %18 and my wealthy neighbor was drawing above %10 on money market certificates, he called them.
 
Shoot this nation and probably every other nation in the world has been in debt pretty much since the get go. This nation has been in debt since back around 1776 and has been ever since. I think if the world paid off all that is owed there would not be enough of any thing top even come close to do so in any nation. Or in other words there just is not enough money in the world to pay off any one nations debt
 
(quoted from post at 19:26:10 03/20/18) Do those quality people exist, or at least could they be candidates.
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This may be the question for the ages in America. People I was sure would be quality candidates have shown themselves to be venal, grasping, self-centered tools. I don't know what happens when otherwise normal citizens get a small taste of power. I guess it corrupts everyone. The recent article about Ben Carson and his profligate spending(and then blame the wife!) is the latest example. I considered him a quality responsible learned man of letters who would watch out for all of us. How wrong I was. He's just one of thousands in the oligarchy.
 
(quoted from post at 15:45:05 03/20/18) Best idea would be to sell Federally owned land to private people,put it to a good use and collect real estate taxes off of it.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly...millions of acres out here not making the gov't a cent. Sell it off, pay the debt, make new rules...
 
(quoted from post at 18:55:01 03/20/18) The gov't is squandering the assets on public land.I go thru the Shenandoah National Park right much and I see thousands probably millions in all of top quality timber left to die and the trees fall over an rot.This is a total waste of a valuable resource plus as the dead trees and brush piles up a fire will break out sooner or later and sometimes they burn for days.
Private ownership of land is the foundation this country was built on and in the case of the Shenandoah National Park the state and Federal gov't basically stole the land from the rightful
owners back in the 1930's anyway.
Click to expand...

The forest in the east are miniscule to what went up in smoke out west in the last 5 years...stupid stupid....
 
The national debt was paid off one time in our history.
Andrew Jackson did it in the 1830's.
It was paid off with spending cuts and selling government land out west.

Two years later the bubble burst and we went into the longest depression in U.S. history.
The government has been in debt ever since.
 
Get rid of the national parks to have more idiots build subdivisions and have more babies on welfare and bridge cards? Sounds like a really poor idea to me. I'd rather have the national parks and get the freeloaders in this country back to work. And the government needs to stop spending so much money on freebies for lazy people. Who will buy all this land? The average broke american has less than $4000 dollars in a savings account. 90% of the population couldn't afford to buy 2 acres of land let alone pay the taxes on it.
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(quoted from post at 21:48:37 03/20/18) Get rid of the national parks to have more idiots build subdivisions and have more babies on welfare and bridge cards? Sounds like a really poor idea to me. I'd rather have the national parks and get the freeloaders in this country back to work. And the government needs to stop spending so much money on freebies for lazy people. Who will buy all this land? The average broke american has less than $4000 dollars in a savings account. 90% of the population couldn't afford to buy 2 acres of land let alone pay the taxes on it.
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a262098.jpg
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You obviously have no idea how much federal land there is and what percentage is national parks....
 
The only long term, workable solution is to cut spending, and I mean to the bone. Yes there will be major uproar and riots but all of that will soon pass, cut the bums out, cut the illegals out, pare government programs and functions to what is provided for under the Constitution, period. We have mountains of tax revenue, cut the spending and we would be debt free in 10 years or less.
 
> So the next time someone tells you Social Security is going broke just remind them it is really not broke.
It is just the U.S. government defaulting on a loan.

You are trying to conflate where the SS trust fund is invested with projections on its future growth and spending. Those are two totally different things!

Let's make the analogy with a personal investment. Suppose you put 10K in an investment that earns 4% annually and you draw 5% of the investment balance every year. At some point in time, that investment will go to zero because you're spending money faster than it is coming in. It doesn't matter WHERE you have invested the money. You can put it in a Fidelity, T. Rowe Price or Vanguard fund, each with a net return of 4% and the result will be EXACTLY the same.

Now, this assumes that the investment firm doesn't go belly up and that your funds aren't embezzled by a crooked broker. But that is a different scenario. The reason the SS trust fund is invested in US Treasury securities is that those are the SAFEST INVESTMENTS ON THE PLANET. Which of course means they have a very low rate of return. Back before the dot-com bust and the financial crisis, folks were talking about putting SS funds in the stock market. NOBODY talks about that now.

You claim the US is "defaulting on a loan". Please give a specific example of a case where the US Treasury has defaulted on a loan. It has never happened, although our beloved president has certainly suggested it's a good idea.
 
Welfare folks and selling land have no relation to each other.Plenty of people to buy land just check real estate listings to see how land sells.Plus if more land lowers real
prices,then great some less well of people can then own a place of their own.Anything is better than the gov't owning it.
 
Defaulting would mean nothing because the debt actually means nothing, any system employing a fiat currency has no real assets backing their monetary supply or debt to begin with. Wiping the slate clean with a stroke of the pen would not be a ''default'' in the true sense of the word, 40 odd years later Billy Preston still has it right, ''nothing from nothing leaves nothing''
 
(quoted from post at 17:43:30 03/20/18) Selling assets that belong to the PEOPLE(land) to pay debts is ridiculous. The concept of govt owned land, being sold to private parties goes back to monarchy times, and before. That's what we fought to get rid of!

As for the debt, there's plenty of blame to go around. Most voters can't think beyond next month's rent payment. The idea of a govt default isn't even on the radar. Until it is. We - will - default. Projections at this point are around 2033, or if things continue to get worse, 2028-ish. Short answer - we've got 10-15 years to solve our debt that has been growing for more than 40 years.

Salad days for those who are spending today, is going to be penury for our kids. They should be rising up in indignation and cutting us old folks off now.
Click to expand...

Holding onto land that is not being used even though it belongs to the people is RIDICULOUS. When you talk public land many people immediately think of national parks, which no one would want to sell. Have you never heard of military bases closing down?????
 

It's no big deal, the National Debt. We've got over $122 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities. They'll just print more money to cover it...
 
(quoted from post at 00:28:57 03/21/18)

The forest in the east are miniscule to what went up in smoke out west in the last 5 years...stupid stupid....
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How many acres do you estimate that to be?
 
There was a huge debt concern 8 years ago and it was a major topic on many media fronts every day. I think many of us hoped a change in leadership would get it under control. Apparently we were wrong.
 
This has been a pet peeve issue for me for years. The frustrating thing is that neither party seems to care and is perfectly content adding to the debt. I was a bit encouraged by nnalert even bringing this issue up in the 2016 debates. It has been considered a non-talking point for years! The tax cuts have come, and now we are looking at racking up debt even faster. I was appalled at the rate of increase in the prior administration. I am just as upset the leadership of this country IN BOTH PARTIES will continue to kick the can down the road even further. I was a junior in high school in 1984 when the federal debt surpassed $1 trillion. The federal government had 4 years when it was "fiscally in the black." These were the last two years under the Clinton administration and the first two years of the G.W. Bush administration. An economist friend of mine told me that historically, this nation would raise taxes, aggressively sell bonds, enact rationing of various goods, and other tactics during a time of war, so that everyone felt the "pain" of being at war, which would rally the nation and its people and to aggressively work to end that war. This has no longer been the case for decades. The leadership of this country should have never lowered taxes when the war on terror and the Iraqi war began. Estimates I have come across suggest the cost of this since its start tally up to $6 trillion.

Various "experts" suggested that as long as the annual debt was less than some percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this nation, it was of no concern. Others have suggested as long as the total debt does not exceed 100 percent of total annual GDP, it was not a concern. We have surpassed both of those figures, and few, if any, show any sort of concern. I appreciate Hay Hay Hay bringing this up for discussion. I believe at the end of World War II, the nation's debt was at a figure comparable to where we are today, in terms of "percent of GDP." A key difference today, is that our country continued manufacturing and employing people to aid in rebuilding Europe and Japan after the war, which resulted in overall a great economic boom. That is no longer a factor today as we have outsourced so much of our manufacturing, and we have people who are under employed. We also have a low percentage rate of employable people who are employed, which I believe indicates a high percentage of people who have essentially given up on finding work, or considered perpetually unemployed.

I realize the situation has changed, and my comments may not entirely be accurate, but in those final years of the Clinton administration and the first couple years of the Bush administration, when there was a "budget surplus," our nation had very low unemployment (probably not much different from today), a low in "underemployment (people were mostly working in their chosen careers and being paid for what they were trained and educated for), and a high in the percentage of people who were employable in the workforce. In terms of helping to solve some of our key national economic issues, and probably some of our social issues, shouldn't this be what we as a nation should be striving for? I guess I do, and I think this initiative has the best potential for getting the nation back on track as a whole, and I do not believe either political party and its leaders have a clue about this very issue I raise.
 
This is a tired old song.
First, I did not spend all of that money. My part would be most accurately represented by one single grain of sand on 5 miles of sandy beach.

Second, I have never been sent a bill or expected to "pay my share" of this debt. Neither have my children or grandchildren. Nor will they ever be sent a bill.

This is just a "paper" debt as far as I am concerned. It gets paid when it gets paid - or maybe not paid at all.

How about the Europeans that owe us tremendous sums of debt left over from two world wars? And why do we keep sending money to supposedly prosperous nations like England, Germany, and France?

In any case, this is a pointless debate that has no place here on this forum. There is nothing that any of us can do to change what is or what may be in the future regarding this debt. I refuse to get worked up about things that are so completely out of my control.
 
> Defaulting would mean nothing because the debt actually means nothing...

But it does matter. It certainly wouldn't mean "nothing" to the hundreds of millions of folks who expect to collect Social Security benefits should the government decide to wipe that particular slate clean.

But even if you favor a policy of grandma-starving, there are other repercussions. The US government is able to borrow money at rock-bottom interest rates because it has never failed to repay an obligation. Despite what the King of Debt may claim, creditors don't like it when they get stiffed. The day the US government defaults on an obligation is the day every US Treasury security is downgraded to junk bond status.
 
There would be no defaults on Grandmas SS, just more worthless currency printed same as since 71. Its not gonna happen by the way, I am just pointing out that it would not stop all of humankinds clocks if it did.
 
"An economist friend of mine told me that historically, this nation would raise taxes, aggressively sell bonds, enact rationing of various goods, and other tactics during a time of war, so that everyone felt the "pain" of being at war, which would rally the nation and its people and to aggressively work to end that war."

Very interesting comment you have here. Makes a lot of sense, kinda like having some catastrophe do the same thing like Pearl Harbor and the Twin Towers. No doubt, we are steered just where the "steerers" want us to go......like a bunch of sheep! No doubt the result of the towers has made the debt what it wouldn't be otherwise. The question is, have the decisions resulting from that act been in our best interest as a nation?

One thing my granddad told me as young shafer: The government has the ability to print money when it runs out and money is just a means to an end, legal tender for goods and services one needs and wants. Wink!
 
Yepper. Lots and lots. Don't remember the administration nor the year but it happened frequently then and all the media hype was about
the bawling and squalling from the folks making their livings from the sites......damned if you do something, damned if you don't. No way
would I be a politician.

I know of several, one case in point on alternative uses is Bergstrom AFB, in Austin, Tx. It used to be a Strategic Air Command bomber
base with nuke bombers on ready alert during the cold war. Base closed down and the city of Austin bought it or was given it as their new
municipal, regional, international airport. Money well spent as their existing one was a nightmare to get into for landing.
 
Oh yes you will and then some.

Let's say your monthly check is a very modest $500. How much money would you have to have stashed away to earn you that amount and retain it's value to keep the checks coming? At today's 0.9% give or take "secure investment rate" including bank CD, IRA. US Savings Bonds it would take a bundle. To support my current share I would have had to be a millionaire!".

Take Medicare, a government sponsored "insurance company" that you pay premiums for, and paid into while working.....My cancer in 2013, list price was $150,000. One shot, to prevent infection after a chemo when all your white blood cells were dead, listed for $10,000.

Thanks to medicare and their bargaining power at the negotiating table with medical suppliers, and the employer for whom I worked and supplied me with retirement benefits, my out of pocket expense was $1750. How much would I have to have earned and stashed away in my IRA to pay that bill and still keep that $500 or whatever is my current monthly check is, coming without loss or reduction.

Question for you: If the Government wasn't borrowing out of the separate SS account to pay it's bills, who would borrow the massive SS stockpile and pay the interest that gets accumulated to grow the account while simultaneously paying out claims? Nobody!
 
(quoted from post at 10:36:40 03/21/18)
(quoted from post at 00:28:57 03/21/18)

The forest in the east are miniscule to what went up in smoke out west in the last 5 years...stupid stupid....
Click to expand...

How many acres do you estimate that to be?
Click to expand...

Okay Eldon, since you didn't answer I looked up data myself. According to the National Interagency Fire Center between 2012 and 2017 2,749,442 burned across the entire nation. New York state alone has a 6 million acre state park (more thantwice the area burned over 5 years) that is covered in forest, to say nothing of the rest of the state that is forested. Add in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, etc and what burned out west is absolutely dwarfed by forest lands in the east. Don't make the assumption that the east is all NYC.
 
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