The REAL Debt Issue?

US GDP : 15.03 trillion
US debt : 14.726 trillion
Total debt to GDP ratio : 97.97%

But note that Debt to GDP doesn't actually mean ... anything..

US Debt: 14.726 trillion.
US Tax Receipts (2010): 2.162 trillion.


US Average Yearly Debt Expenditure (including principle):
2008: 550 billion
2009: 725 billion
2010: 440 billion

(We are technically paying less on debt today, with a much higher deficit, than we were in 2005 and 2006 .. because of lower interest rates)

2010 expenditures on interest: $197 billion. or 6% of the budget

DEBT is not our problem .. it's what Congresscritters and the MSM tell us the problem is. In fact, even at 14 trillion dollars, the USA Debt is very, very manageable. Year over Year we can put huge dents into what we owe ..

The REAL problem, that no Congresscritter wants to discuss.. is that Social Security expenditures are increasing on average 10% a year

For instance..

2006: USA pays $570 billion for SS expenses.
2010: USA pays $750 billion for SS expenses.

Compound this, take it out another decade.. what do you get?

Screwed

In 2010 Social Security assumed 20% of the entire budget.

It gets worse..

In 2006 the USA payed $530 billion on Medicaid and Medicare, as well as all other health services expenses.
In 2010 the USA payed $860 billion

If we average 75 billion in growth a year for the next 10 years (a very conservative estimate) we will be paying 1.6 TRILLION by 2021

To all you anti-war Obama lovers..

In 2006 (Under Bush, in the height of the wars) the USA spent $530 billion on defense.
In 2010 (Under Obama, supposedly ending the wars) the USA spent $720 billion on defense.
In fact the largest ever recorded expense on defense spending was in 2009 at just under $800 billion.

And somehow under Obama we managed to spend $50 billion in 2006 on the Labor Dept and $150 billion in 2010.


The point is DEBT is not the issue ..

Social Services and Defense spending is.. out of control Government spending ..

But no one is talking about what REALLY needs cutting, the 3 largest expenses SS, Healthcare, and Military consume the vast majority of our budget, and all 3 are exempt from spending cuts .. in fact Healthcare expenses are going to shoot up dramatically in the next few years under Obamacare.. The REAL fear is that compounding the growth of our social welfare system over the next 2 decades, we will consume so much debt just to pay for those services that the entire economy would soon implode.

www.federalbudget.com...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.gpoaccess.gov...
www.whitehouse.gov...

Does it really matter anymore? We are seriously screwed. Nobody will take responsibility for fixing the problems, they just want to place blame. How does placing blame fix anything? So what if it was Bush's fault. Blaming him, or anybody else, does not fix the problems. We need to cut spending. We need to cut defense spending, we need to end foreign subsidies, and we need to cut entitlements. If we don't, then the experiment our founding fathers embarked upon almost 230 years ago is over.

reply to post by DarthMuerte


That's sadly the sobering thought. Because the real issues behind the deficit and thus the debt are so ... untouchable .. the inevitable outcome is quite clear: The United States of America WILL collapse this century for a certainty. Or, at the very least, will not resemble anything that we know today.. This goes for the entire Western World, the Welfare State, the Nanny State .. is impossible to uphold when the burden is placed on a shrinking middle class's shoulders.

reply to post by Rockpuck


But, but, but...You just want old people to die.

I am sure that is coming your way.
It is a hard truth to swallow.
Great thread.

reply to post by Rockpuck

This goes for the entire Western World, the Welfare State, the Nanny State .. is impossible to uphold when the burden is placed on a shrinking middle class's shoulders.

There is nowhere else to place the burden. Poor people, by definition, would be unable to pay and there are not enough of the rich to support the burden for long. Even if we confiscated all of their wealth, it still would not be enough to support an ever growing nanny state. "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money". We see the results in Greece, we see the looming catastrophes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. How can we be so arrogant as to believe that we will not have the same problem?

reply to post by DarthMuerte


Yep and yep.

Gotta say, love the username.

Death Death.

I kill you twice.

Love it.

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by DarthMuerte

 

Yep and yep.

Gotta say, love the username.

Death Death.

I kill you twice.

Love it.

Actually "Darth" means lord, or close enough to it. So "Lord Death" or in the strategy games I love to play, "Lord of Death".

reply to post by DarthMuerte


Oh, I misread it. I thought it was DeathMuerte.

My mistake.

Originally posted by DarthMuerte
Does it really matter anymore? We are seriously screwed. Nobody will take responsibility for fixing the problems, they just want to place blame. How does placing blame fix anything? So what if it was Bush's fault. Blaming him, or anybody else, does not fix the problems. We need to cut spending. We need to cut defense spending, we need to end foreign subsidies, and we need to cut entitlements. If we don't, then the experiment our founding fathers embarked upon almost 230 years ago is over.

Or there really isn't a problem and they are just using this fabricated problem to move the agenda forward (whatever that may be).

reply to post by daskakik


Oh there really is a problem. A big one. A massive Keynesian inspired issue..

Our economy can continue to fund the ever expanding costs of welfare IF and only IF the economy sees a constant 3-5%+ growth, perpetually without end. As we all know ..it's not. The Federal Reserve and Treasury decided inflation, debasing the monetary base, was the easiest way to make it seem like there is growth .. while also lowering the actual debt obligations of the Government. The sad after effect they forgot to calculate into their shenanigans was that it also debased the perceived value of the Welfare system, jacking the costs up at extreme rates of inflation, higher even than the rest of the economy because they were stimulating through inflation something that actually had a demand -- healthcare. The only viable solution to the Keynesian Mind is to reign in healthcare and "take it over" .. try to dictate the rising costs by creating a scheduled of costs and income through the actual economy (insurance and hospitals). Insert Obama Care. This way the budget won't be cut, treatment will .. cut a service without touching the budget .. keep the economy in a perceived state of growth while limiting obligations.

Social Security however cannot be so easily manipulated, currently SS is manipulated by being tied to the movement of CPI -- official inflation .. meaning that the average growth rate of checks per individual is being dictated by a BS number that the Treasury creates out of thin air, for 2 years out of the last 4 there was no increase in check size .. even though inflation (real) averages 10% a year. Sacrifice grandma. But the system cannot manipulate how many people actually come into the program. Short of killing them.

These are not fake problems. They are simply not discussed the way they should be .. the true dangers hidden, the complexity hidden, the numbers hidden, no .. instead we get to watch Boner Vs Obama discuss "Debt" and bitch about where they will trim 1% of the budget.

reply to post by Rockpuck
S&F
So there are the problems.

What are the solutions? Honestly. What can we do?

reply to post by Rockpuck

I don't buy it. All these word games and number crunching does not alter the amount of food being grown, fresh water available or number of living spaces available.

A slave master telling his slaves that he has to cut their rations because times are tough while he and his family are doing better than ever is what is going on. Of course he has to put forth some convincing proof that things are really bad. That way the slaves won't resist.

reply to post by beezzer


There are a number of viable solutions:

Disband every welfare program or try to restructure them. Restructuring won't work .. we just tried that with Obamacare and created a massive mess.

War. A very, very, very large war .. one that can kill off a huge percentage of the people between the ages of 18-35 to reduce the work force while raising the actual workforce demand, production and over all economic activity.

During the great depression Keynes ideologies spurred ideas like "The New Deal" that did nothing to actually help the economy. It took a World War to destroy nearly every major economy save one, and to reduce the workforce by a large percentage .. after the War there was a recession compared to the war-time economy .. but through rebuilding the World, every economy saw "growth". IMO, it's the only way the West will survive, we have to destroy ourselves.

Or we can continue debasing the currency to cover the costs of Government while year over year reducing the quality of life in the USA to the point where we will resemble something more along the lines of the USSR than we do today.

reply to post by DarthMuerte


Don't forget Germany and Canada and Sweden a couple more socialist countries on the verge of collapse.

reply to post by Rockpuck
Our choices are war, to lower work force population or a return to self-reliance.

Good reply by the way.

Um, I'm going with a return to self-reliance. Rugged individualism. Taking care of me and mine.

reply to post by beezzer


I didn't see a return to self reliance as an option.

I don't think that in this day and age the take care of me and mine would work. At least not with the current population density.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by beezzer

 

I didn't see a return to self reliance as an option.

I don't think that in this day and age the take care of me and mine would work. At least not with the current population density.

edit on 24-9-2011 by daskakik because: (no reason given)

I must disagree. Lets say tomorrow, the government stops all aid. Sure, there will be people wee'ing themselves but just short-term. People can adapt to anything.

Even freedom.

Hows about an entirely new economic system? One that isn't based around debt, or money for that matter. I've always been fond of jacque fresco's ideas and concepts and the idea of a resource based economy.
Do we have to continue this endless cycle of suffering?
Whenever I think about advanced alien civilizations with the technology that allows them to travel the stars, I always wonder what kind of economic system they have.
Surely their economic system isn't based on a piece of paper and debt.
If a civilization like this were possible then they wouldn't have an economic system as archaic as ours because they wouldn't have reached such an advanced stage if they did.
The very idea that major war "fixes" the economy is a big enough sign that this system is rotten.
We will never mature as a species if we continue with this kind of economy, we will wipe ourselves out.
Sure, something like a resource based economy would be extremely difficult to transition to, but we don't really have a choice.

reply to post by beezzer


The subject of the OP is debt. How is the national debt gonna be paid off by self reliance?

Plus, I don't trust the gov to stop taxing even if they did stop aid.

Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by beezzer

 

The subject of the OP is debt. How is the national debt gonna be paid off by self reliance?

Plus, I don't trust the gov to stop taxing even if they did stop aid.

If the government stopped paying out in entitlements, then the debt would shrink.

By default, if entitlements stopped, self-reliance would kick in.