Now you're just making stuff up, too. Why do people feel the need to support irrational arguments with outright lies? It doesn't help. Please stop.

It isn't "my data", it's the real data. I gave a source, which ultimately goes back the US Treasury. You're welcome to attack the credibility of the US Treasury if you like, but leave me out of it. Also, it's completely ridiculous to throw in all the budgeted future payments for Social Security and so on without also counting the budgeted future revenue that will pay for those things. In other words, you're just making stuff up, and even AFTER you do that, you still end up with hypothetical numbers that don't represent a particularly bad financial situation. Stop wasting our time.

Moreover, in your analogy, you are assuming that all citizens are producing at the rate that your plumber is. They are not. The number of people employed right now is close to the same as those who are not.

Your data regarding the national debt is very outdated, png. The debt is now > 100% of GDP. Moreover, back during WW2, we didn't have nearly the off-books promises of payment for Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, etc. that we do now. We now have well over $100 trillion in promises to pay - over $300,000 per individual. For productive individuals like us, we are expected to "contribute" more like 2 million dollars, which is close enough to what many of us will make in our lifetimes that we are effectively slaves to the state.

The better analogy for your $40,000 per year plumber is having about $200,000 on a mortgage - when you include the off-books promises to pay.

Oh, please. This doesn't even survive the most cursory analysis. The US national debt was a much larger fraction of GDP during World War II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_de... As you can see from the article, the debt is currently about 74% of GDP. That's an awful lot of money, sure, but compare that figure with your own real-world experience. Imagine a plumber who makes $40,000 per year and owes $30,000 on a mortgage. Who would call that a problem, never mind unrecoverable? Don't focus on the amount of the debt, focus on the nature of the debt. Focus on the fact that this debt was imposed on us without our knowledge and consent, and that whatever the amount of the debt, it can only be repaid by taking the proceeds of our productive efforts away from us at gunpoint. That's what matters here.

The only was to straighten out our screwed up financial situation is to go back to zero and start over again.

Sorry jdg - I've seen the stats.
Just not true.
We're no where near the largest debtor nation.
Greece is and many lead the way between us and them.
There is no chart or list showing our total lending and debt that shows us anywhere near the bottom and I challenge you to show it.
Doesn't exist.

Just look for debts owed the USA - we loan money out to a variety of nations.
It's a web of debts and debtors - it's not just debtors on one side and lenders on the other.

That's a wide generalization, but they are factors that some of the nations are in that situation and will likely be so for some time.

Same as any bank.

And guess who defaults more often...
...so maybe the article has a point.

No, the total still leaves the US as the biggest debtor nation.

Read the works of Davidson and Rees-Mogg, especially "Blood In The Streets".

I don't refer to it as "our" debt, though. I didn't authorize any of it. Nor, I suspect did you.

Sobering is not the word I would have chosen. Ridiculous, maybe. Time to cut off the money flow to DC, somehow.

I was reading the same "point of no return" stuff 20 years ago. Nobody actually knows when (or if) an economic point of no return will be crossed. So far, improvements in technology appear to be keeping prices down in spite of the rapid expansion of the money supply. And serious investors (or countries) buying or selling U.S. Treasury debt are certainly aware of the possibility of a rapidly depreciating currency, and have adjusted their risk profiles and expectations accordingly.

what is owed to us can not be paid to us by the countries that owe it to us because they do not have it. also they do not have a federal reserve company that can create the money from thin air as the federal reserve located in the USA can. so we will not be paid back and there is no way that we will ever try.

Would you please elaborate, or point me toward a source that does? I had missed the fact that there are vast unmentioned debts owed us.

Jan

it finally opened for me. one thing that is not recognized is that when each generation appears to accept what ever is already in place. they don't know any different, so they accpt the situation. some with education may very well see that some of what has been going on is not good, but then they have to educate those around them. that is a problem. as time has gone by the government take overs become just accepted and the education needed to change things gets more and more difficult for two reasons, increase in population and a dumbed down population. the latter wouldn't understand anyway and the people who are working in the welfare system commonly called the government like it that way. nothing is going to change for the better at all and in my opinion all will get worse.

No.
We borrow money from other nations for specific and general purposes.

They do the same. Added together, the USA has NEVER been shown as a debtor nation.

I'm using the following definition:
DEFINITION of 'Debtor Nation'

A nation with a cumulative balance of payments deficit. A debtor nation has negative net investment after recording all of the financial transactions it has completed worldwide.

They always list the debt - but never list the debt owed us. I find that interesting.

does not open for me