If you plan to confiscate private wealth people own to pay off the national debt. This is money people have earned and already paid taxes on, in most cases. Much of this money is old people's retirement savings. Half the people in society are a lot poorer than you think. It's not going to be easy to yank this money from all of them. Just a quick statistic, there are only about 120 million people working as full-time employees in the U.S. About half of those earn minimum wage. If we divide $21 trillion by 60 million, we'd get $350,000. I'm not saying these 60 million are the only people you could squeeze more taxes out of, but that calculation should be a strong indicator that this is a huge amount of debt.
You don't worry because you think somebody else will pay for it. No need to worry, we'll just seize people's private wealth, you say! My personal opinion is you people are completely brain dead and will get what you deserve when dramatic cuts have to be put in place and taxes are jacked up to the level they cause impoverishment and higher unemployment (from less money being spent, since it's going to paying off the debt), just like what happened in Greece.
This is indicative of the failure of your argument. You haven't applied any sound economics. Instead you pander to the theory of the elites, where somehow most people are incapable of mastering the quality of your opinion. The ironic aspect is that there's no quality in opinion that hasn't bothered with the macroeconomic basics...
Its important to note when discissing the debt that most (roughly 2/3 of it last I checked) is money the govt owes to US citizens in the form of bonds, pensions, etc. $150K each isn't a realistic number given that the bulk of that is owed to The People anyway. Its more like $50K per person if we limit it to whats owed to non-US entities (which is still crazy, just quite a bit less so).
The temptation is to respond in kind but I'm really not nearly as good at that as you so I'll defer to you as the experienced professional in 'moron-talk'. My specialty is econ, and seriously, we got a number of issues here: One is that dividing total federal debt by total U.S. population is stupid, just as dividing total U.S. private wealth by the U.S. population is also stupid. In real life the rich have most of the money so they'll pay off most of the federal debt in taxes --and they'll get a lot of the money from selling off the T-bills they own which will make that tax money go right back into their pockets. Finally total private assets ($114.4T) and total private debts ($15.5T) is how we get our net worth of $98.7T --so mixing in federal debt means our total federal debt of $21T should be subtracted from total federal assets (federal land, battleships, Smithsonian paintings, etc.) to say what the federal net worth is. That's stupid too. Bottom line is that debt is not bad, it just has to be managed by adults how look at interest payments and limit spending. A couple years ago T-bills were selling for ZERO interest --that's FREE money. Now interest payments are going up so spending's going to have to be cut even while revenue's rising.
I'd love to address that too; it's a serious issue but sadly nonsense on this thread is becoming toxic. Pse let me know if you come across an adult forum discussing this.
Go get into debt because the rich will pay for it. Got you. Now it makes a whole lot more sense why there's so many people who don't seem to give a care about the debt.
They were only near zero because the Fed was lending out money below market interest rates—losing money—trying to keep interest rates as low as possible. Also partly because the subprime mortgage crisis—people finally realizing that some of that wealth didn't really exist—created some deflationary pressure. (When people realize they have less money than they thought they did, prices go down) However, in this case, the deflation (from the housing bubble being deflated) canceled out the inflation from the Fed expanding the money supply in the effort trying to keep interest rates down. Interest rates being so low is definitely not normal, and cannot persist over the long-term.
No, T-bills actually went at auction for full face value which came out to a zero percent bond. I can dig out a screen shot of the actual Treasury Dept. auction announcement but my thinking is that you'd still decide that something else was happening and it would be a waste of time. You could get it if you wanted but the phrase "hell freezing over" comes to mind. Maybe if you said please and put in some effort to convince me that reality mattered to you I'd do it..
I'm willing to believe you, but that's very bizarre. Holding a zero percent bond is no better than holding cash. I'm guessing the buyers of these bonds might have been large banks or huge corporations sitting on top of a lot of extra cash they didn't see any safe opportunities to invest.
It is crazy at first glance but the fact that they sold means that there were people w/ clear needs. They may (like you suggested) been large banks & they could have been required by law to have so many bux on file in T-bills; other possibilities are endless. At the time there were a number of other countries' gov't bonds selling at negative interest which makes dreaming up reasons even more difficult.
Trump said 7 trillion for Middle East wars, I so wish Bush would of left Iraq alone and just did a quick Arial attack on Afghanistan for 911 cost to USA was : 7+ Trillion cost to Terrorists was : box cutters, flight lessons, airline tickets the terrorists win when we over-react and spend Trillions in our response think of all the nation building at home could of done for a fraction of that 7+ Trillion
I know, lets give the corps and the rich a huge tax cut, then they will trickle down for the heck of it cause they have so much money the middle east wars cost us over 7 trillion.. was it worth it? could we of fought back for a few billion vs so many trillions, I think so, but sadly republican like Bush disagreed you do know that you do not pay taxes on money that was already taxed, you pay taxes on income like interest and dividends, ect....
He wasn't talking about raising taxes. He was alluding (it seemed like) to seizing their money they already own.
Surely, given the various rational explanations for debt, you shouldn't be referring to restriction on debt? You should actually be referring to criteria for surplus (e.g. avoiding macroeconomic overheating)
Please show me where Congress or average Americans care about more debt? Trump is no different than 95% of the USA...self-serving...
Criteria for surplus and restrictions for debt can be the same thing...for example a requirement of a balanced budget. I say debt should not be used as SOP and only for emergency. How debt is handled determines the potential for a surplus...
A requirement for a balanced budget doesn't make much sense. I mentioned overheating as an example. It can make sense to run a surplus, as you attempt to control inflationary pressures. Its not about eliminating debt mind you, its simply realising the nature of optimal macroeconomic policy.
Right wingers used to point the finger at Obama on a daily basis. But criticism can work both ways. Now, it is time to share the wealth. BLAME TRUMP!
Your problem is you think government can be trusted to run sound economic policy. When in reality, there's an innate human tendency to spend, spend, spend. Especially when you're spending other people's money and you're not even going to be in the decision-making seat in 8 years time. Very little direct accountability.
Nope. I expect government error. The difference between our positions is simple. While you don't understand macroeconomics, I've referred to key aspects and its impact on policy. For example, understanding overheating isn't difficult. This is just your repetition of your attempt to suggest macroeconomics can be understood in terms of the individual. It cannot. You can refer to how the macroeconomy is prone to crisis because of the individual (animal spirits no less), but that merely strengthens the need for interventionism.
You just use macroeconomics as an excuse for irresponsible policy. If the government doesn't already have a surplus saved up, it shouldn't be running deficits. End of story. It's the fault of irresponsible people for running up those debts in the first place and not having any money saved up. In your fanciful little magical world where there's "free money" and a "multiplier effect". If the multiplier effect is so great, like you argue it is, why can't the government ever use this to pay off those debts?? That should be pretty strong evidence enough right there that the system you advocate for doesn't work. Certainly didn't work for Greece, however much your kind want to blame it on after-the-fact austerity. The solution to overheating is to STOP spending money you don't have.
I use knowledge to excuse irresponsible policy? Be serious. This is ignorant. There is absolutely no comparison with the government and the individual. More ignorance. The multiplier effect is really just a mathematical concept. Why not do the bloody obvious? Before huffing and puffing, refer to macroeconomics with at least a level of validity.
