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.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @12:34PM (12 children)
Seriously, who expects the US government to ever deliver on this?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @02:39PM (10 children)
Like all debt...
No-one.
But the interest payments into perpetuity will mean even if they don't pay it off, the people who gave it will profit and have an enormous hold over the terms of repayment.
Literally, Britain paid back DOUBLE the war-debt to America for WW2, and didn't pay it off until nearly 2007.
The longer you draw it out, and the more you can stretch the term and keep the payments going, the more "constant, reliable, small payments" you can rely on in your balance sheets.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ilsa on Friday September 15 2017, @04:00PM (5 children)
Up until you can't make those payments.
How long until the US needs to ask Greece for financial advice?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @04:49PM (4 children)
The US has its debtors by the balls too. If the US defaults, their economies crash.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday September 15 2017, @04:56PM (2 children)
So what you're saying is that the world doesn't even need nukes anymore? Sounds like the whole world already one step away from a cataclysmic collapse without having to fire a single shot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @05:10PM
Nah, you need nukes when the money-shuffling stops working and you need some other way to bully the world into submission.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:48AM
Financial crash of 2008 says hi... and that next time it's going to be bigger.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:22PM
A principle President Trump did business by, but goes back to at least the 1940's: When you owe the bank $100,000 and have trouble paying it back, you have a problem. When you owe the bank $100 million and have trouble paying it back, the bank has a problem.
That said, right now there are a lot of people in the US government who would love to default on the largest creditor of the United States: The Social Security Administration. It's possible to look at that as money the US government owes itself, but another way of looking at is is that this loan shifted the tax burden from the progressive income tax to the regressive payroll tax so that rich Americans don't have to pay as high a percentage of their income in taxes as everybody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)
Our debt holders have very little to say about the terms of repayment. I don't understand how there are so many financially illiterate fucks with opinions.
Want to tell me where and how "things" like you get ideas?
--Creimer
__________________________________
Why buy an iPhone X for $1000 when softbank will sell you a 4g capable onahole for 3000 yen a month?
Don't forget to download my 7000 line hosts file!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
I think you'll find they agreed them when you took out the loan.
And they have to agree to any deferrals (UK made several for the WW2 debt).
And they have to agree to the terms of those deferrals.
And they have recourse when you don't pay (which still happens even for large countries), and can choose the terms of any future loans based on your previous (you think this is just one loan, or that any country you owe only has one loan with you? No, they allow consolidation and get re-vamped every few years as new loans are folded in, paid off or disputed).
And they get to use them as a bargaining chip (interest killing you? Okay, how about you reduce the interest on our neighbouring country's loan, or provide us a good arms deal, etc.)
They have a fucking lot to say about terms of repayment or they wouldn't grant you the loan, and if you don't follow their terms the NEXT terms are worded even more in their favour.
Rather than think that I automatically meant "Oh, they can charge you twice this month because they feel like it", try reading.
You don't take out a loan and then say "Fuck it, I'm not paying this this year" without consequence. We have entire government departments to discuss and negotiate these deals and try to agree on terms, and it's affected by everything from "what the minister said about our country in the news" to "who we're currently at war with". Sure, on paper, it's 2%. Now ask for a deferral and see how friendly those debtors are. Then try - for instance - to reduce the debts using the emergency measures referenced above, to avoid default, without having to sit in a room and discuss repayments - and all kinds of politics - with your lending countries.
"Why Mr Brexit! Hello, you want to discuss your loans to Germany. Okay? No, I have it written down that you pay every year on time or penalties occur. What's that? Oh, you can't afford it this year. Shame. Why, if only there was some OTHER way in which we could benefit which would allow us to let you defer that kind of payment for that length outside the terms initially agreed... gosh..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:36PM (1 child)
US Govt: We're running a bit short this month, can you help a brother out?
FED: Sure, just let me open the spreadsheet. OK here's a Trillion dollars, will that do?
US Govt: Cheers thanks.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:58PM
"Hmmm.. strange... the value of the dollar plummeted internationally when we did that, and our debt is counted in Euros anyway, so we still need to find the money and we just screwed ourselves over while also making it really easy for all the people who owe US money to pay us a virtual pittance and clear their debt to us forever...."
Never become an economist, mate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:53PM
Me, I do. They expect me to pay personal debt - I expect them to pay ours as a nation. Stop spending, pay it down, and don't get in this shape again.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 15 2017, @12:35PM (17 children)
"The currency isn't going to work. You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart." --Jamie Dimon
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:27PM (15 children)
The answer is - go back to the gold standard. Our currency should have something behind it - not just our good intentions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday September 15 2017, @04:40PM (7 children)
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...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:49PM (2 children)
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)
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
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
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)
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)
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
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. =)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 15 2017, @05:05PM (6 children)
-1 Stupid.
What makes gold worth anything? Nothing more than people generally agreeing it does. It's no different than BitCoin. Gold is not a genuinely useful material, except for a few specialized applications (e.g., corrosion protection on electrical connectors, which only requires a coating a few atoms thick). A bag of rice is honestly more useful than a bar of gold, because you can cook it and eat it.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday September 15 2017, @05:17PM (4 children)
I will agree that gold and bitcoin have at least one valuable property in common: they are difficult to mass produce and/or poof into existence by self-serving politicians.
So, when the money- and power-drunk politicians go on yet another bender, they can further devalue the "not a genuinely useful material" paper dollars, but they can't touch Real Money.
Don't you get it? The reason everyone chases money so hard is that it is (relatively) scarce. Remove that attribute (gradually) and it (gradually) loses its worth.
Any kind of money worth having (for long) is a proof-of-work token. "But some people get dollars without working for them." Exactly!
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:32PM (3 children)
Oh yes they can! Some things governments on gold standards have done to devalue the currency:
- Reduce the amount of gold per currency. For example, Roman coins got lighter as emperors became more desperate.
- Change the weights used so that a "pound" is no longer what a "pound" used to be.
- Mix other metals in with what appears to be a gold coin or gold bar.
- Add another metal into the monetary system, e.g. silver.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday September 15 2017, @08:53PM (2 children)
Currency is not gold. Currency may or may not be fraudulent. Coins too may be counterfeit. But as I said, government cannot devalue the gold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @10:50PM
Ha! They sure can! They may not be able to change the physical laws of the universe (gold atoms) but they sure can control the valuation of their monopoly money.
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:21PM
Gold has an intrinsic value - shiny jewelry, gold fingers on circuit boards and other industrial uses.
But gold also has value as a currency (medium of exchange).
For a very long time, it's value as a currency has been much greater than it's intrinsic value.
While they can't devalue gold's intrinsic value, governments can (and have) interfered with gold's value as a currency - for example, they can make it illegal to own it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday September 15 2017, @09:23PM
Yup, money only has worth because of agreement:
when the shit hits and you can't get online and won't for years and you find it hard to get to town for your weekly grocery shop,
--bitcoin won't be worth anything (until things get 'fixed' anyways), i'm sure most people would agree. "I have 400 bitcoins: will you sell me that bag of rice?", will get you laughed at.
--I have 400 US dollars. I want a bag of rice. Can we come to any agreement that those bills still have worth? If so, we can make a deal. If not, no amount of bills will solve your problem.
Shit, people collect Barbie dolls thinking some day they'll be able to retire and sell them for vast amounts of money: but if no one agrees they have value, they ain't worth sh*t.
Same with the T Y babies (quite a few years back... wow, time moves): people were collecting them like they WERE bags of rice, then people stopped seeing worth in them and collectors couldn't frigging GIVE them away.
It's all agreement. Right now, i wonder how much anyone would pay for my body to eat it... probably not as much as they would 'pay' if there were no other food around, lol.
Agreement makes worth.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Friday September 15 2017, @11:13PM
OMFG that is a gem. Need that on Tshirts. Jamie Dimon is one greedy fuck.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Justin Case on Friday September 15 2017, @12:39PM (18 children)
Debt is a silly thing to worry about when we have real problems like the weather not being exactly the same every where every day year after century.
Debt really does not matter a bit. After all, we only owe it to ourselves. When it comes time to even just pay the interest, we can borrow more to do that! It is basically free money. We don't even need the trees to grow it on. Just poof by an act of the gods (Congress, same thing) and there is more money.
Really, the government (which is the only source of all good things, like money) could just use helicopters to spray cash all over everywhere and we'd all be rich. The only thing stopping it is those nasty racist sexist evil old white men who hate everyone (even themselves, secretly) and get a perverse thrill from our suffering. The 1% who think up clever new ideas, produce things, start businesses, hire people and force them to actually work (ugh!) -- those are the problem. Once we kill off the producers the rest of us will be able to laze about in lives of luxury, being served umbrella drinks by beautiful robots in skimpy bikinis.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rondon on Friday September 15 2017, @12:47PM (4 children)
Does building this straw man and burning him down make you feel better? If it does, by all means keep building and burning. If it doesn't, why not make any one of the hundreds of rational arguments as to why we should be balancing the budget and reducing our debt?
Here, I will start - the United States government should start reducing spending on the military in order to balance the budget, because going into debt to create a mighty military practically guarantees that we will have to use that military and find a stupid war to get involved in.
I'm not saying my argument is the best, but I will say it is better than a straw man. Maybe we can try to find consensus on how to fix the problem?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rivenaleem on Friday September 15 2017, @12:51PM (2 children)
Burning straw ment is terrible for the environment. I propose that straw men become the new unit of currency. This way we will be incentivised to sequester atmospheric CO2 by growing more and more straw.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @01:30PM (1 child)
How about a "Burning Straw Man Festival"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:00PM
This is sexist against Straw Women.
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Friday September 15 2017, @04:41PM
Whoosh...that just went right over your head. Some people just don't get sarcasm.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by driven on Friday September 15 2017, @01:06PM (8 children)
Really, the government (which is the only source of all good things, like money) could just use helicopters to spray cash all over everywhere and we'd all be rich.
You have no clue what would really happen, do you? The value of a dollar would plummet and you'd be hauling wheelbarrows of cash just to get a burger.
And quit hating based on skin colour. That just makes you sound stupid.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday September 15 2017, @01:47PM (6 children)
Woosh!
As insane as it sounds, I have heard every one of these arguments advanced, most of them right here on our beloved SN.
I have merely provided the service of compiling the ideas and removing the fluffy words so you can see what they are really saying.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)
Poe's Law strikes again! =)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:04PM
Invoking Poe's Law does not make the intent of the satire above reproach.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday September 15 2017, @04:45PM (3 children)
Sorry, I didn't read down to your "woosh" because I was sending the same response to the first post after your OP.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:59PM (2 children)
It's ineffective anyway because a true whoosh has to "h".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 15 2017, @09:26PM
woosh!
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:10PM
Is that what it has to do?
I was hoping it included an H after the first W, as opposed to having a requiring to h-ing.
I don't even know what that is. I know what F-ing is, and I'd give bitcoints for that. H-ing sounds like hping and that's not going to buy me much. Even cha-ching is more clearly relatable to this off-topic post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:47PM
The Fed basically did this, but instead of helicopters spraying everywhere, they just gave it to their friends at banks. Or bought up worthless stuff from their other friends. Trillions of dollars added, and where was the hyperinflation, or even regular high inflation, or even just normal inflation?
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday September 15 2017, @01:12PM (2 children)
And I t thought I had weird fetisches [robots.com]
(Btw - I think we just violated rule 34, couldn't find any industrial robots in bikini)
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday September 15 2017, @08:50PM (1 child)
Then you didn't try hard enough...
https://avalonis.deviantart.com/art/Sexy-Futurama-Robots-157272617 [deviantart.com]
https://theinfosphere.org/Angleyne [theinfosphere.org]
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/227854062368654348/ [pinterest.com]
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PTc-6JPF9o0/maxresdefault.jpg [ytimg.com]
http://dajto.markiza.sk/aktualne/1677274_dokonala-zena-naco-staci-sex-robot [markiza.sk]
Humans... that play robots in film/tv
http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/9400000/Tricia-Helfer-Maxim-Photoshoot-2007-HQ-tricia-helfer-9417740-1790-2400.jpg [fanpop.com]
http://forums.thefashionspot.com/f50/grace-park-283827.html [thefashionspot.com]
http://pcwallart.com/summer-glau-wallpaper-1.html [pcwallart.com]
https://borg.com/hall-of-fame/summer-glau-cyborg-terminator/ [borg.com]
And believe me, the list goes on... and it can get really long (and sometimes weird) with safe searching turned off)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday September 15 2017, @10:27PM
Thanks, but for androids and non-industrial robots I did find a lot (heck, it has been a bog standard in my porn collection for decades).
However for _industrial_ robots I didn't find any.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @01:13PM
Trump! Trump! Trump!
(Score: 5, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday September 15 2017, @01:11PM (8 children)
Our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is dying. We haven't had refineries built in decades, right? We're going to have refineries built, OK, folks? We will cancel the job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal. We're going to rebuild our infrastructure. Without regard to flooding. Without regard to sea level rise. Without regard to climate change. Which are total, and very expensive, hoaxes. I'm a builder. We're going to rebuild. We're not going to study it to death, we're going to rebuild. For which we need to borrow a lot. Nobody thought any politician would have the guts to approve this borrowing. And I just closed my eyes and said: "do it." It’s beautiful, it’s great. Everybody is happy, the sun is shining. When I approved it, I thought I’d take a lot of heat. But I took none, actually none. But I take so much heat for nonsense that it probably overrode the other. 🇺🇸
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Friday September 15 2017, @01:20PM (6 children)
Reminds me of a thing that always has amazed me with USA.
In most other parts of the rich world a catastrophe usually means a somewhat quick rebuild with buildings built to meet the strictest codes and highest standard they can build to - and taking advantage of the scale of the rebuild to lower cost and faster.
Most rebuilds I've read about/seen pictures of in the US are basically the same things rebuilt to lowest possoble standards that can be fudged past inspection.
So, have I just had bad luck in which reports I've come across or is there a reason for this oddity?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Friday September 15 2017, @02:05PM
The only think I can guess is that people that live in hurricane alley simply don't care. The likelyhood that the storm will wipe out their home instead of one a few cities away is pretty low, so they just live with the risk.
It is the same with infrastructure. After the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed there was this huge stink raised over crumbling infrastructure. Did anything come of it? I remember a huge statewide push to inspect bridges where I live. A few even got some repairs. But once the media eye passed on to the next disaster, this was all quietly forgotten about.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 15 2017, @02:21PM (3 children)
Last time I visited Canada, I was struck by the wealth disparity between even Canada and the US. Canada is a rich western nation, yet they make do with traffic lights at intersections that would be interchanges in the US. The cars were on average older and more worn. There were a lot of little things too, like greater use of price stickers on merchandise. Seemed to be about 10 years behind on tech.
At the opposite extreme, Dallas and Fort Worth Texas have gone on a bridge building bender of stunning scope. I hear the interchanges are among the highest if not the highest in the nation. Rather than cloverleaf style interchange, they start the overpassing freeway up a long ramp a mile or more back, making vertical room for exit ramps. It all started with the "High Five Interchange" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Five_Interchange [wikipedia.org] .
They didn't quit with the interchanges. Now they're hard at work building a parallel toll road to I35, the major N/S freeway through the area, and I635, the loop interstate around Dallas, so far only on the north side. Several other roads are getting this treatment. As there is no room for these additional lanes on the ground, they elevated the whole dang road. You can stay on the ground and not pay a toll, and have a fine view of the underside of this new elevated highway, or you can take any number of ramps that climb up to it, for a small price.
Yeah, the US is still plenty wealthy, even with the current erosion of the middle class.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Friday September 15 2017, @03:02PM
Canada is a big country and wealth disparity exists within.
Some places are richer and you see lots of luxury cars and few shitboxes, while other places the reverse is true. I'm sure the USofA is the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:26PM
Canada doesn't have interchanges everywhere because they are a hideous blight on the landscape and a waste of good land.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Friday September 15 2017, @07:14PM
"10 years behind on tech" seems a little excessive, and we're more advanced in some ways. For example we had chip+PIN and then NFC-capable terminals in Canada for years before US merchants finally upgraded (and only by force, as card fraud costs shifted from card issuers to the merchant, giving a huge incentive to ditch stripe terminals).
Otherwise, we have access to most of the same toys at the same time the US gets them (phones, cars, TVs, home electronics, etc), I imagine there's fewer per capita because of the higher prices due to exchange rates and higher average taxation.
As for lack of massive interchanges... most of our major cities, you just can't justify the cost of building and maintaining them. They are massively more expensive than traffic light intersections and most major cities aren't hubs where traffic comes and goes N/E/S/W, they're dots on a line and traffic flows in and out along only two major directions (Vancouver: S+E. Calgary: N+W. Edmonton: S+W. Ottawa: W+E). Montreal's the only one that's really hit on all sides, and has the interchanges to reflect that, as does Toronto with N+W+E arterials.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @06:39PM
The two are not necessarily conflicting.
Also we're more honest about it. Some of the stuff in China is pure WTF, but put on a nice smile so as not to lose face. The Russians invented the Potemkin Village, the Chinese perfected it and produce it on an industrial scale.
A third answer is most of the time we aren't going to build good stuff in stupid areas. You want to live in a shack, find a house in a flood plain that gets washed away every couple years. Eventually people will get sick of it and move, until then they get shacks.
A forth answer is most of our rebuilt stuff is really good, but the minority of junk is very loud when you have a country this big, therefore we hear endlessly about rebuilt junk.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:39PM
Shiny Happy People Holding Hands [youtube.com], right?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:24PM (3 children)
That will do a ton to lower our debt. Get rid of Haliburton, et. al. and make the military survive on its own again. Somehow, we fought world wars without Backwater and Haliburton. If the military cannot survive without them, then they were never prepared properly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:53PM (2 children)
Besides the obvious fact that the military is a way to scoop up otherwise indigent lower-class people, and put them to work doing something that at least appears productive, the military is also a boondoggle for high-tech industry who gets to build very expensive devices and then blow them up.
More over, a government is an organization founded on the idea that it gets to coerce people into allocate resources one way or another; the military is the metaphorical gun in Uncle Sam's hand.
So, no. There's no way ever that military spending is going to be reduced. Ever. The only time a government ever reduces such spending is forced to do, either by another government or by the implosion of the economy-of-coercion that it has established to prop itself up.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:59AM
Ehm, you are aware that USA spent about 9% of GDP on its milotary back in the 60s? Heck, most western countries spent 2-3 times (relative to gdp) as much on their military as they do today. (Globally it has dropped to a third compared to the early 60s, fiddle with graph below to check it out)
If you met in absolute values - as long as increases lags behind inflation that's fine...
Here are the nordic countries (js-req) [worldbank.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @05:10PM
Yes, the two major jobs programs are military for the poor and research for the middle class. Above that I guess jobs programs are unnecessary.
(Score: 4, Funny) by looorg on Friday September 15 2017, @02:31PM
Just put it on every citizens credit card, imagine all the extra credit points / free miles etc everyone will get. Nobody will mind much.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday September 15 2017, @02:33PM (1 child)
https://howmuch.net/articles/per-capita-debt [howmuch.net]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt [wikipedia.org]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday September 15 2017, @02:42PM
Takes you from 5th to 3rd, though.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday September 15 2017, @02:49PM (25 children)
When it first became $500 billion, the austerity crowd started wringing their hands and warning that if it got any higher all of society would collapse. Then it got to $1 trillion, and the sky did not fall. Then it became $5 trillion, same thing. So who do U.S. taxpayers owe this $20 trillion to? Mostly, other U.S. taxpayers, i.e. we owe the money in our right pocket to our left pocket. Don't panic over this. It's a number on a piece of paper. If it's really that much of a problem, maybe would should return the top marginal income tax rates to where they were when Eisenhower was President, i.e. 91%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:04PM
Time.... it will catch up... don't worry. (Banks are institutions that shift money from the future to the present, but have to repay at some point).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @03:11PM (11 children)
it's not the right pocket owing money to the left pocket.
it's future generations being supposed to pay for the retirement years of their parents and grandparents.
if future generations don't pay (for whatever reasons), you get inflation and the retired lose all their savings.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:05PM (10 children)
That's what this endless horde of suckers never understands.
Money is just an accounting technology; there are real resources being allocated and used up.
That $20 trillion debt represents resources that have been used up, with no sign of that use having been productive enough to make society wealthier.
People, it really is just like a credit card debt: If you buy TVs and computers and groceries and toiletries on credit, those are real resources being allocated to you, and you are promising to use those resources in a way that will benefit be productive enough to benefit the lender, too. Well, if you don't work a day in your life, and therefore never pay off that credit card debt, then you're just going to use up those resources without anyone else benefiting. That is theft.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday September 15 2017, @06:48PM (9 children)
You have it completely backwards, that $20 tril represents resources created! It's capital, not expenditure! What is it with these concrete-thinking types that something abstract like money escapes them entirely?
Back when some were pushing the Obama Trillion dollar coin idea to get around the dumb-as-dirt conservatives who were opposing the raising of the debt limit, some of these concrete types said that there was not enough platinum in the world to make a trillion dollar coin! As if a trillion dollar coin had to be make of a trillion dollars worth of metal, just like how a bitcoin is made of just that much worth of computing power, and a hundred dollar bill is made of a hundred dollar's worth of paper and ink. Idiots, why are there so many of them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:11PM (8 children)
As very eloquently explained by your parent, you cannot know whether resources have been created until the debt has been paid back.
The money is an accounting technology: So far, the accounting says that $20 trillion worth of resources have been allocated, but there's no proof that such an allocation of resources has been productive for society; the lender cannot know that allocating to you the "TVs and computers and groceries and toiletries" has been productive until the lender has been paid back (with interest).
Until your debt has been paid back, a conservative observer must assume that you have simply used up those resources, rather than created more wealth from those resources.
What's the point of even using money if you don't actually use it do any sort of accounting?
If the allocation of that $20 trillion worth of resources has been productive, then do something to make the accounting reflect that fact! Pay it off!
Let's say that said allocation has indeed been productive; let's say that the world has received a 100x return on investment.
Well, so what?!
Had those resources been left to the allocation decisions of the "private" sector, maybe the return on investment would have been 900x; there's no proof that government is a particularly good steward of society's resources—indeed, history lends itself to the argument that the "private" sector is a far better decision maker for how society's collective resources should be allocated.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday September 15 2017, @08:24PM (5 children)
This is completely ridiculous! Are you Bain Capital? Corporate raiders that can only rate an enterprise by liquidating it? There is no place for the $20 trillion to go. If it was not debt, it would not exist. Debt is someone else's asset, whether it is ever paid off or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @08:40PM (4 children)
The $20 trillion debt represents a lack of accounting for the return on investment.
It cannot be clearer.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Friday September 15 2017, @10:14PM (3 children)
No, it does not. Just because you think so, does not make it so. A Puritan background in tightwaddyhood and asceticism may make you abhor debt as a moral sin, but it is perfectly acceptable to have debt in perpetuity. Or are you suggesting that the United States of America should go out of business? Are you a Nazi, or a Reb?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:21AM (1 child)
And aristarchus WINS the Troll mod of truth! Victory lap, y'all! Goldbug neo-nazis feeling the burn! So sad, too bad. I sometimes wish our more repugnant ACs were a bit more literate and schooled in the ways of economics and monetary theory, but you know, there is something to be said for reprehensible stupidity. Not sure what that is, but someone once said it takes all types! Shortly after he said that, he was dragged away by a mob of Christians in Alexandria, cut into very small pieces, and burned on a pyre.
So we try one more time: Private debt and public dept are not the same thing. There is nothing wrong with fiat currency. We will tax your ass, with guns if necessary, because you should understand civic responsibility, and if you do not, when, the guns thing. And, you are stupid and deluded, and a libertariantard. So there!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:19PM
dude, stop with the colorful adjectives and nouns for your descriptions of people and concepts, and turn to the side and count to 10 when the righteous fury of being able to correct a wrong you have seen on the forum arises, and maybe you'd be less likely to offend when your rhetoric is toned down.
its hard to stay on your side when you seem to trade brains with ethanol-fueled--but he is at least consistent. we know what to expect from him. you don't have the same condition, but appear to be related somehow--you just got the passive gene and he got the dominant one.
unfortunately we are learning that you react strongly to perceived personal slights or misunderstandings--but you were not always that way.
i can't say lighten up, but I can say tone it down. you're free to post as you like, but remember, the community mods you if you don't mod yourself. i am not speaking of self-censorship either --i'm saying phrase your same ideas more professionally than resorting to name calling when it seems like people don't agree with you.
it may work on other forums, but it doesn't seem to be working here
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @05:26PM
It is perfectly natural to be poor, doesn't mean it is a good idea or desirable...
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday September 16 2017, @03:51AM
> you cannot know whether resources have been created until the debt has been paid back.
One can at least study the balance sheets; debt incurred vs expenditure on improved infrastructure.
The UK has an issue, I believe, because the balance sheets show that the debt is incurred to cover operating costs, rather than improved infrastructure. The investment on infrastructure improvements is rather small while the debt keeps growing.
Another way to look at it might be productivity as a function of debt. In the UK at least, productivity has not improved while the debt keeps growing.
I can't speak for the US...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:46PM
Because my buying them enabled the store to make money, the sales assistant to be paid. Plus whatever she spends that money on.
Plus the delivery guy got paid, and anything he spends his money on.
Plus the guy at the factory who made the TV's etc, and anything he spends his money on.
Plus the company who made the whatever to buy all the little whatevers and those people etc etc.
And all the dividends that the company pays, and whatever those people do with the money, spend or invest etc.
If I pay in cash or rack up a debt makes no difference to all those people. If I never pay back that debt it makes no difference to any of those people. The only thing harmed if I default is the bank. And here's the magic in the system. The bank created that money/debt out of thin air anyway.
But wait what if everyone did that? Well even if everyone defaulted, the bank is too big to fail and the fed will just create money and give it to them, also out of thin air.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Friday September 15 2017, @03:21PM (10 children)
Precisely. One of the most insidious arguments of the austerity/fiscal hawk crowd is that all debt is equal, so the US govt. debt is the same as a credit card debt or a mortgage. It's nothing of the sort, and not like every citizen "owes" the government a 5 figure sum as stated in the summary.
I support this idea as well as high inheritance taxes. In the past, companies simply used to pay their high earners more to make up for the tax shortfall. The point of progressive taxation is not just to ease the burden on the low paid, but to engineer society so that it is more difficult to accumulate vast amounts of wealth through inheritance - the majority of the super wealthy stay rich through accumulating interest and low taxes on inheritance. What good does it do for the rest of us?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ben_white on Friday September 15 2017, @03:29PM (5 children)
Inherited wealth adds no value to society, we should have significant estate taxes for the reasons you allude to. I like the analogy of playing Monopoly. A game of monopoly is over when one individual accumulates all of the assets. Imagine if the next game played, started with the winner's daughter starting with all of the assets her father accumulated in the previous game. Everyone else just gets to pass go and collect their salary. What chance do the other players have to accumulate any wealth of their own. We are rapidly moving toward this scenario in our economy.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:18PM (4 children)
Monopoly is a zero-sum game.
As you say, once one player gets all of the resources, then that player wins; yet, in the real world, taking everybody else's resources is not at all how it works—in the real world, wealth is created; the pie is grown, not stolen ever more from others.
The real world is not a zero-sum game.
Your analogy is therefore completely wrong, and thus your conclusions for the real world are completely wrong.
Inheritance is just one one person appointing another person to be the custodian of resources; though not guaranteed, a son may well be the best replacement for his father, having grown up in close contact with the man who accumulated (and hopefully created) that wealth in the first place. The whole of society is better off when there is that kind of continuity between stewards of resources; society is not better off when know-nothing, vote buying, paper-pushing bureaucrats are just arbitrarily handed the life's work of a productive person (I mean, why should that one particular organization be the new custodian? WHY?)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 15 2017, @05:24PM (1 child)
The real world is not a zero-sum game.
That's not true. Just like in Monopoly, where the resources that are zero-sum are the properties on the perimeter of the board, in the "real world", there's a finite amount of real estate. Everyone needs a place to live, so when all the real estate is bought up and the prices constantly inflated, you get exactly the scenario the OP describes with the last Monopoly game's winner keeping all the assets for the next game. In theory, this problem is alleviated by multiple factors, like property owners dying and their property being both taxed (inheritance taxes) and split up among their heirs, and new real estate being built (e.g., subdividing open land and building a new subdivision, or buying up some single-family housing and building a high-rise condo there), but we've gotten to the point now that cities just can't expand much more because transportation becomes infeasible (it's not worth it to live on the outskirts where it's affordable if it takes you 2 hours to commute to work because the traffic is so bad and it's so far away), and also because the property owners and zoning boards are refusing to allow new high-density construction (as we see in SanFran now).
The whole of society is better off when there is that kind of continuity between stewards of resources;
No, it's not, because wealth tends to accumulate and you end up with very wealthy families holding most of the nation's wealth. Honestly, your use of the word "stewards" makes you sound like a kool-aid drinking follower of Prosperity Doctrine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:56PM
You've said nothing new, and you therefore haven't countered your parent.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Friday September 15 2017, @05:54PM
This may or may not be true of a family business. It's almost certainly untrue of massive bank accounts. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have limited their children's inheritance, probably so they don't turn out like Paris Hilton. Lineal succession has a long tradition, but its flaws are some of the most well-documented history on the planet.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:30PM
Ok, for each new game of monopoly, just add another board. The daughter of the winner just starts with a whole board full of property and a massive wad of cash. You start with nothing. Now you all fight it out on both boards. Who do you think will win? Next time when there's 3 boards and the next daughter owns the previous 2 your kids chances are even less.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:10PM
Please see this comment. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:33PM
Please see this comment. [soylentnews.org]
--------------------
No, this comment is not redundant; it's a reply to another person—it's the only way to let that person know that someone has read his comment and has a reply. Redundancy would be copying/pasting the text at the other end of the above link, but I didn't do that. Instead, I linked to that text in order to keep the comments tidy, but you fuckers don't care for my attempts to be useful. Next time, I will just copy and paste, because fuck you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
-----------------
Please see this comment. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:46AM
Unpossible. If you earn a Redundant mod, it becomes an "informative" mod, since we will have seen what you did there. To truly be redundant, you have to not earn it, but just be it, like the TMB. Endless repetition, which no actual contribution to the discussion, spewed across all comment threads. Some might call it, "spam"? Or "Tim", but more likely spam, with or without bloody Vikings.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:11PM
The highest the debt has ever been was about $250tn following WWII when adjusted for inflation. We paid it down largely by inflating our way out of it and screwing over the people without enough money to be invested in stocks. It wasn't a huge problem at the time because the US was one of the few advanced economies at the time that hadn't just had all of its factories bombed out of existence. Of the remainder we were by far the largest.
The issue here isn't that the debt has reached $20tn, the issue is why we reached that figure and the complete lack of anything even remotely resembling fiscal responsibility by one of the parties. The GOP hasn't figured out that lowering taxes while keeping spending neutral or increasing it leads to increased debt. The point where lowering taxes results in increased tax revenue is extremely high to the point where the US hasn't even hit it. Even when the top marginal rate was above 90%, we hadn't hit that point and I'm not sure if we ever will.
The other issue is that the things we're spending the money are stupid. We're borrowing money not just to give tax breaks to the wealthy, but we're also wasting absurd amounts of money on wars and a military that's larger than the next dozen or so combined. We're also not spending money on things that we know will increase future prosperity, such as infrastructure, education, medicare for all and research and development that's not connected to the military.
The end result is that while we can pay the debt off in a reasonable period of time, we won't do it. And to make matters worse, it's just going to get larger because the politicians are owned by special interests that have no interest in budget that's balanced, unless it comes with massive tax breaks for the wealthy.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday September 15 2017, @02:50PM (8 children)
You fucked us again
Sincerely,
The future
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:57PM (7 children)
I like the part where we live at the expense of future children, who we obligate to pay our debts at gunpoint before they are even born.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday September 15 2017, @03:33PM (6 children)
In my ideal world the millennials would pay into the system but not receive benefits so that we end the cycle with us. But far easier to fuck the future and kick the can down the road.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:13PM (5 children)
In an ideal world, we'd just go around shooting billionaires and taking back what they stole to pay off the debt. They've got enough money between them to pay off about a third of the debt and liquidating them would serve as a strong incentive to the rest of the ultra-wealthy to stop being greedy bastards and let the government run a balanced budget.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Friday September 15 2017, @05:21PM (2 children)
Don't forget, in your "ideal world" the billionaires can shoot back.
And they can afford more bullets.
What then? You've established that it is OK to shoot people to take their goods and pay off the debt, so please post your physical address so we can come for you next.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:18PM
You're an idiot then. We've established that it's OK to steal from people who got their stuff by stealing from others and destroying the means by which others might become wealthy.
We haven't established the idea that it's OK to steal from random people.
As far as bullets go, those only make a difference if you've got enough personnel to use them. And those people don't decide that it's not worth what they're being paid when they can just loot the place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:12PM
please post your physical address so we can come for you next
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/12237184/The_Complete_Ashley_Madison_Dump_from_the_Impact_Team [thepiratebay.org]
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/12256948/Ashley_Madison_2nd_dump_20_GB [thepiratebay.org]
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/12523982/Patreon_Leak_Complete_SQL_Dump [thepiratebay.org]
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/16933823/public_database_dump_collection [thepiratebay.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by istartedi on Saturday September 16 2017, @12:11AM (1 child)
The trick is shooting them all at the same time, because unless your communist revolution is instantaneous and complete, the value of their assets falls to a small fraction of what it once was. The other trick is not letting the middle-class know that the billionaires are actually dead. That way, you still have a functional market into which you may sell the assets of the dead billionaires. Finally, the real trick, and this is where it gets incredibly difficult, is to kill all the bourgeoisie simultaneously. Once again, this is necessary to keep the market from collapsing since it always crashes hard once revolution is afoot. Finally, only the proletariat is left and they have a perfectly functional market that's still worth trillions of dollars. The only trouble is that in order to cash that in, you must sell assets in the market which makes you a dirty capitalist. Therefore, in order for this plan to be fully effective the proletariat must all kill themselves simultaneously so that nobody knows.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:21PM
wait, can't I just keep the wine collections, the pretty women, and the art collections and high tech stuff, the mansions and fancy cars and all that... without selling it?
i mean if i sold it I would just go buy some anyway, and probably at a loss.
better to communally share the women all to myself and ride around in fast cars and live in a mansion and get drunk on expensive wine than do what you are proposing.
i mean that coke ain't snorting itself off hookers ass--someone has to do it, and as a bourges uh whatever you said middle class, i havent had any of that so I volunteer to be the first to yield to temptation and take the place of a billionaire.
i'll share, i promise