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posted by martyb on Friday September 15 2017, @12:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the mucha-moolah dept.

The U.S. national debt reached $20 trillion for the first time ever last Friday after President Trump signed a bipartisan bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months.

While at Camp David, Mr. Trump, with the stroke of his presidential pen, increased the statutory debt last Friday by approximately $318 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Before the bill's completion, the U.S. debt was sitting around $19.84 trillion.

The legislation allowed the Treasury Department to start borrowing again immediately after several months of using "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default. The bill passed last Thursday 80-17 in the Senate and in the House 316-90 on Friday. Around $15 billion in emergency funding for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts was attached to the borrowing measure.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-hits-historic-20-trillion-mark/

[That works out to just shy of $62,000 per American. --Ed.]


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 15 2017, @04:40PM (7 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:40PM (#568529) Journal

    Gold is stupid. We need an energy standard. As a bonus, that's something that would encourage a metric shitton (or 1.15 imperial shittons if you prefer) of concentrating solar, "eggbeater" wind-turbine power, thorium, etc. Energy is king. Gold? Not a lot you can do with gold once you have it.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:49PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:49PM (#568576)

    I'm not sure. Isn't that dangerous, allowing the serfs their own way to generate wealth that's not bequeathed to them by their Owners?

    Before we implement something like that, we need rules in place to ensure that an Owner owns the rays of the sun and the movements of the wind, like Owners in certain places own the drops of water that fall from the clouds, regardless of where those rays or drops land or where those winds blow.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (1 child)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday September 15 2017, @06:36PM (#568611) Journal

      Why not something useful, like a potable water standard, or a Clean Air Standard? Can you imagine? "This Federal Reserve Note is exchangeable for the current market valuation of clean air." See? Gold buggish, and environmental, all roled into one! All bitcoin gives you is hot air coming off the cooling systems on those mining rigs.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:51PM (#568661)

        Potable water will work, at least in the jurisdictions where there is an Owner to take ownership of the water that falls from the sky. We can't have the serfs collecting it in barrels and then thinking they may employ filtration, boiling, or other techniques to make it potable. As long as every serf is beholden to an Owner for potable water, this is fine.

        Same idea with clean air. In fact, if we designate Owners to the winds that blow across different jurisdictions, that would create the kind of framework we need. Then the only source of clean air for the serfs would be an Owner.

        That being said, I recommend Druidia Air™ In-a-Can™.

  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday September 15 2017, @07:14PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday September 15 2017, @07:14PM (#568635) Journal

    Too bad Enron screwed the pooch on that one so badly. It's a good idea that will probably never happen now.

  • (Score: 2) by Scrutinizer on Saturday September 16 2017, @05:09PM (2 children)

    by Scrutinizer (6534) on Saturday September 16 2017, @05:09PM (#569031)

    Gold is stupid. We need an energy standard.

    The reason for a gold standard is that such a currency was redeemable upon demand in gold. Gold is currently value-dense, rather scarce, effectively lasts forever, is impossible to counterfeit and hard to fake, and actually does have some industrial uses. Compare and contrast with the US dollar, the vast majority of which are ephemeral in computer storage and have been officially counterfeited/inflated over and over again at the touch of a button.

    I'd be much in favor of an energy-based currency if I could exchange my $100 bill for $100 in energy. Currently, it's a lot harder to carry around energy in a pocket than it is a roll of bills - or a few gold coins. (No, no, I'm wise to your enriched uranium coin suggestion...)

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:54AM (1 child)

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:54AM (#569290) Journal

      Actually I was thinking small vacuum capsules with a speck of antimatter in one chamber, but hey, high grade U235 sounds exciting too! :)

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @06:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @06:16AM (#569296)

        Pocket-sized permanent magnetic bottles strong enough to store any quantity of antimatter may well make transacting in energy-based currency rather difficult due to the very large denominations involved.

        Unless you were just planning to use it as a setup to blow folks like me up, in which case Russian polonium is a much cheaper alternative. =)