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Global Debt Hits 325% Of World GDP, Rises To Record $217 Trillion
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To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.
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(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @11:14AM
Tax the rich! Give to me!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday January 06 2017, @02:21PM
Basic income? Go with the times! Python income now!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @02:59PM
In my day we had K&R C income and we liked it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @07:53PM
I think we should try out Go income instead, I want to be able to shout "Go income go!" every time I buy something :P
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @09:50PM
I live in the Rust belt, you insensitive clod!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @11:44PM
Must be a lazy bum if you can't afford to buy stuff, get a job ya bum! Back in my day you walked into a place with a smile and a handshake, hired on the spot. These lazy kids nowadays g'damn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @11:29AM
we should create more jobs by making more debt because keeping track of debt is also work! scar-some(sic)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Justin Case on Friday January 06 2017, @12:02PM
No, you have it backwards! If we would fire all the people keeping track of the debt, we wouldn't have to worry about it any more.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Justin Case on Friday January 06 2017, @11:47AM
Nothing to worry about here. Just confiscate the entire wealth of a few billionaires who are probably mean people anyway. Not only will that pay off the $217 trillion, it will provide enough extra for us all to go on a binge spree for many years.
(Every now and then, it would be nice if the tax-more spend-more crowd would show their math.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday January 06 2017, @12:44PM
Well given that most of that 217 trillion in debt is probably owed to a handful of megarich organisations anyway, you wouldn't need to confiscate anything - just cancel the debt. However I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that. I wouldn't mind governments shaking down a few big companies though, given that they don't pay their way in taxes most of the time anyway.
If we mugged a few big banks and multinationals and spent the money on sensible things like healthcare, roads, tech research, public transport, fibre optics etc then we'd probably find that however many billion we invested in those projects would be returned manyfold. A road that costs 5 million to put down, that is flatter / straighter / wider than the road it replaced might save a few pennies in fuel and a few minutes in time per journey. Multiply that by tens of thousands of commuters over a number of years and that 5 million pays dividends - it just doesn't pay it directly back to the source, which is why big business is so reluctant to invest in such projects, and why we need things like taxes and government to get this stuff done.
You see, by building roads and hospitals etc and saving time and money for ordinary people and businesses, you make them more efficient - you increase their economic potential. Businesses can reach more customers and get more out of their employees, while employees can travel further to find the job that suits them and truly fulfils their potential. Meanwhile people have more money in their pockets to feed back into the economy as consumers or even to set up their own business ventures. Either way the economy benefits, and tax income rises as a result. This positive feedback loop is pretty much the history of civilisation. Think about it - the individual efficiency made possible by our collective infrastructure, technology and education is basically the only thing that sets us apart from medieval Europe or ancient Egypt. Roads and machines and healthcare and so forth are the reason a loaf of bread is now a small fraction of the average daily wage rather than an entire morning spent laboriously grinding flour by hand. Look how far ahead of those civilisations we are: If we want to push even farther ahead, we need more infrastructure, more technology, more education. Everyone benefits, but everyone has to pay into something that doesn't immediately show up as a profit on the quarterly balance sheet. I don't see why those who have derived most benefit from our continuing advancement (and who also have most to lose should it all collapse) shouldn't pay more than the rest. I certainly don't see why they should be effectively exempt from taxation, which is how it is now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @01:05PM
while employees can travel further to find the job that suits them and truly fulfils their potential
Nonono... we can't have that. We need malleable drones that do exactly as they are told, when they are told to do so and for the price they are told to do so. Free Market(tm) is not for the proles. Besides, who cares about potential? Work is suffering and suffering is good, as we learn from protestant teachings. That is why we exploit the fuck out of everything and anything and why -for instance- you get zero vacation or time off in this third world country.
Potential... pfff
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday January 06 2017, @02:28PM
"given that most of that 217 trillion in debt is probably owed to a handful of megarich organisations"
Speaking of needing to show your math...you need to, because that's nonsense.
Governmental debt is owed to whoever has bought national bonds, which are in turn owned not only by the very rich, but also by lots of ordinary people (either directly, or through their retirement funds). I don't know if the report is including "unfunded liabilities", but that is the rest of the iceberg. This is where governments have future debts for which they have failed to set any money aside. Governments normally don't count these liabilities as debts, because they haven't had to borrow the money yet. This kind of debt is massive, and will also affect ordinary people. Just as an example: the US has a current debt of about $20 trillion, but unfunded liabilities of at least $100 trillion.
THe other naive part of your post is the assumption that taking capital out of private hands and spending it on infrastructure will provide some higher return on that capital. You need to go take a couple of economics courses. More importantly, you need to go work for the government, and see just how effectively governments can waste and mis-spend money. The purpose of a government bureaucracy is to propagate itself and grow. The incentives are all wrong: you want to grow your headcount and increase your budget - there is essentially zero incentive to be productive or efficient in the performance of your supposed duties.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday January 06 2017, @03:20PM
Governmental debt is owed to whoever has bought national bonds,
Maybe... whatever. That's why I put a "probably" in there, because I wasn't certain - although I suppose if I was feeling argumentative I could pedantically assert that the kind of governments who are issuing these bonds by the trillion qualify as "megarich organisations". Either way, it's kind of beside the point.
n that taking capital out of private hands and spending it on infrastructure will provide some higher return on that capital. You need to go take a couple of economics courses.
The return is there, but as I clearly stated in my original post, it isn't a DIRECT return back to the people who invested it. It's a shared return that makes everybody a little better off, and so raises the societal platform upon which business depends. A rising tide lifts all ships, isn't that what the trickle-down people like to say? Well, if you want to really rise the tide, you don't pump all the water into a bunch of giant tankers and leave it there - you have to splash some water about a bit.
More importantly, you need to go work for the government, and see just how effectively governments can waste and mis-spend money... you want to grow your headcount and increase your budget ..
Oh yeah, because nobody here who has worked in a private business has ever seen vanity projects that cost millions but produce nothing of value, bad management that turns time and money and hard work into crap results, procurement staff on the make, salesmen pushing products they can't deliver, petty middle managers building personal empires, senior management willing to push their colleagues or even the company under the bus for their own personal gain, companies that abuse the commons or their own customers, bribery, theft,corruption ... yeah, the business world is a perfectly oiled machine in which everybody works in the most optimal way possible and always delivers on time, on budget and to spec. Don't make me laugh.
This idea that governments are bumbling halfwits, stumbling around in the shadow of The Mighty Free Market is nothing more than a randian myth. Governments are no less effective than any other large-scale endeavour that has to contend with human weakness. Don't get me wrong, a healthy society needs business too, but capitalism isn't the One Great Solution to all problems.
there is essentially zero incentive to be productive or efficient in the performance of your supposed duties.
You're the one who needs to go out and get some experience of the subject you are talking about. I have been surrounded by civil servants my entire life. The overwhelming majority are hard-working, dedicated, professional and conscientious people going above and beyond to provide a decent service in the face of all kinds of adversity. Your post is an insult to them, and to be honest it's hard not to take it personally.
Government might not be perfect, but like democracy, it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:34PM
Shabam!!
I love your well thought out posts, you seem to always manage a courteous air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:06AM
> Government might not be perfect, but like democracy, it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
You forgot to state your assumptions.
Some people would rather not be governed by others. And in small communities, that approach does indeed work. It fails with more people, almost never succeeding beyond the 10,000 people mark, because new organisms (groups of people) self-organize and vie for dominance 'one level up' from humans.
But look at the Inuit for a great example of a population that succeeded extremely well considering the environment, historically without being governed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 06 2017, @02:37PM
Well given that most of that 217 trillion in debt is probably owed to a handful of megarich organisations anyway,
We call them governments. For example, the US government probably owns somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 trillion dollars in debt (interagency debt, like Social Security, and quantitative easing). Then thousands of large pension funds and banks next.
If we mugged a few big banks and multinationals and spent the money on sensible things like healthcare, roads, tech research, public transport, fibre optics etc then we'd probably find that however many billion we invested in those projects would be returned manyfold. A road that costs 5 million to put down, that is flatter / straighter / wider than the road it replaced might save a few pennies in fuel and a few minutes in time per journey.
Except when it doesn't. Every one of those "sensible things" has notorious examples where there is at best a paltry return on investment, and sometimes a negative return on investment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday January 06 2017, @03:48PM
Except when it doesn't. Every one of those "sensible things" has notorious examples where there is at best a paltry return on investment, and sometimes a negative return on investment.
Well sure, there are positives and negatives on every balance book. You try to make things as efficient as possible and make the best judgements you can, at the end of the day you just have to accept that despite your best effort nothing's perfect, but as long as the average trend is positive then it's worthwhile.
I would argue that money spent on things like infrastructure, universal healthcare and education can very easily achieve a positive return, as long as the money isn't spent in blatantly foolish ways (ie bridges to uninhabited islands, education money spent on creationism or whatever). Now doubtless there is a point of diminishing returns, whereby (using healthcare as an example) you've spent $X of your tax budget to control the nastiest major infectious diseases, and in so doing have saved the national economy 1 billion man-hours of lost productivity, but spending another $X to control a mild outbreak of some obscure sniffling ailment will only save you an additional 0.1 billion hours... but I don't think there are many western nations currently near such a point, or even heading in the right direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @08:14PM
...but government spending triggers rightards and damages their safe space!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 07 2017, @12:55AM
You try to make things as efficient as possible and make the best judgements you can
The problem is that conflicts of interest by themselves make the idea laughable. And even when collectively people sincerely try, their trying tends to be pretty bad. Any sort of market approach has the advantages that you don't have to care whether the trying is sincere or effective. You can choose to go with whatever is working at the time. You don't have to care why the more effective providers of the infrastructure or service do that (FOPN [soylentnews.org]).
Sure, the creation and maintenance of public services tends to be a weak part. But we don't usually need those public services and it is far too common for public goods and services to exist despite being terrible ideas, either because someone believes in a public good no matter the cost, or because they can exploit the public good for gain.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday January 06 2017, @03:14PM
Pension funds...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 06 2017, @05:54PM
just cancel the debt. However I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that.
That's too bad, because that is exactly what should be done. Private business does it all the time through bankruptcy proceedings. The other method is through wars of 'independence' *cough* USA. So, we, the people, should take the same option, but we'll have to take up arms to keep the banks and their government servants from stealing our property.
Please note that most 'debt' is really just the derivatives markets at work. A better term would be a 'bet' or 'wager', in other words, gambling. The books are so badly cooked so as to be totally irrelevant and nonsensical, big ass lies
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @07:16PM
I've tried pointing out that our stock system is basically a semi-legit method of gambling and things like high speed trading are just gaming the system. However, since there is a good chunk of legitimacy to the system the glaring flaw of "gambling" is just swept under the rug. The mere fact that 401ks are the most popular retirement system is a big red flag, but I guess we'll have to go through another round of people losing their savings to have that fact burned in to their brains.
All these games we play with our business enterprises is stressing people out. Many people work insane hours, literally working themselves to death, all so they can get more money. Some because they desire status and power, others because they need to eat... Fuck that system, I think its time we took the toys away from the greedy kids.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday January 06 2017, @04:04PM
The available alternatives, unfortunately, are either tax-less spend-more (a patently stupid idea that Washington is nonetheless addicted to) or Paul Ryan.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:17PM
No one seriously advocates straight confiscation, if you hear such phrases they are usually just a reactionary generalization. The proper way is to reform our tax codes and just have companies / individuals pay their fair share.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 06 2017, @07:36PM
(Every now and then, it would be nice if the tax-more spend-more crowd would show their math.)
When the other option is tax-less spend-more the math is pretty damn simple.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday January 06 2017, @11:47AM
What gets me is none of these "oooh scary massive debt" stories say who the money is owed to.
If i am in debt for $1000, I owe that to someone. Who the hell does the world owe 217 trillion dollars to? Aliens from Rigel IV?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Friday January 06 2017, @11:54AM
The problem is the various skim on debts. A couple percent in interest, fees, commissions, pretty soon you're talking about some serious wasted human and financial effort.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @02:58PM
You are missing the point. $217 trillion is an average of $31,000 per person on this planet. Who the fuck is that money owed to?
If it is the same 65 people who own half the worlds wealth, why don't we load them on the B Ark, fire it into the Sun, and declare all debts paid?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @07:28PM
You are missing the point. $217 trillion is an average of $31,000 per person on this planet. Who the fuck is that money owed to?
Each other!
You go to work, you get paid cash. Let's assume that is "no debt cash", and you put it in bank. The bank then lends a fraction of that, like 90% to some company, let's make that your company you work for. That company then pays you money, so you can lend it back via the bank. In that way, Your deposit can create 5x as much debt as cash. OK, maybe not that simple, but money that you have as an ASSET is a LIABILITY for the bank. Bank's ASSETS are LOANS. So, snake eating it's own tail? Yes, if it wasn't for central banks that can add or shrink the money supply based on need for money supply to actually exist.
So, $31k per person is money we have, Except it is not exactly per person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday January 06 2017, @12:08PM
Perhaps some of the debt is owed to you.
For example, if you live in the USA, when you get really old you may be able to collect Social Security of $100,000 plus or minus during your retirement years.
Or are they not counting future empty promises in the above "debt" -- in which case things are even worse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @01:01PM
Future Social Security obligations are not counted in the debt, no. This is why the government is a whole lot more bankrupt than they are letting on. Any corporation that used the accounting rules that the US Government uses would be forced into bankruptcy immediately. AFAIK, most or all world governments use similar accounting fictions.
However, they may still owe some of the money to, as you put it, you. Treasury notes and bonds are considered one of the safest investments, at least, you know, until the Social Security bill comes due and the whole thing falls apart. And they are widely held by individual investors, probably even more widely held than mutual funds or individual stocks, as they're considered suitable "widows and orphans" investments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:09PM
Future Social Security obligations are not counted in the debt, no. This is why the government is a whole lot more bankrupt than they are letting on.
Dear lizard, you do know that we, humans, tend to die a few (dozen) years into retirement, don't you?
Because it sounds as if you think that currently retired people will keep getting money forever and ever after and that it will keep growing exponentially with upcoming retirements.
Granted the soon-to-be "papy boom" may (not necessarily though) create a bump but, worse case scenario, this will be for a few decades. They will all die eventually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:39PM
Of course, but new people age into the system faster than old people die out of it,and the difference is growing. Not only are birthrates falling, but people live longer, spending more time taking money out of the system, and starting work later (due to longer education), spending less time paying into the system. Since what you get out is proportional to what you put in, even if the education increases income (which is also not working quite as well as it used to), it doesn't actually make the system more solvent.
Entitlement spending (including not just Social Security but also things like Medicare) is now the majority of federal spending. If not fixed, and fixed soon, within my lifetime it will be most of the GDP. People worry about global warming, but we won't have time to die from that, financial collapse is a much more imminent threat (and I mean real collapse, it will make that business about the housing market look like leaving your wallet in your other pants)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 07 2017, @02:03AM
Because it sounds as if you think that currently retired people will keep getting money forever and ever after and that it will keep growing exponentially with upcoming retirements.
They'll keep getting money till they die. That's long enough to cause massive problems at the current rate of empty promise.
Granted the soon-to-be "papy boom" may (not necessarily though) create a bump but, worse case scenario, this will be for a few decades. They will all die eventually.
It's long enough. IMHO, we'll have a different system in place by then.
(Score: 5, Informative) by caffeine on Friday January 06 2017, @12:25PM
Total debt exceeds total money. The issue is banks create money by lending it as a debt, and don't create the extra money that is needed to cover the interest.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 06 2017, @03:24PM
In fact money is neutral, while debt is control.
Left and right ideologues like to talk about plutocrats and their desire to become richer, while the real game is about making us poor.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @12:56PM
The Orion Syndicate.
And if you don't pay up, they send this guy http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/2/2d/OrionMale2154.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20050423112512&path-prefix=en [nocookie.net] to collect.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @01:07PM
Oddly enough, the answer is "ourselves". Let's pretend there is a planet of only two people. Person 2 has 100% of all the resources, and Person 1 has none. Person 1 says that they will labor for three years for Person 2, in exchange for "one year" worth of consumption (presumably food). Person 2 does not work (they have all the resources). This planet has 300% debt/GDP ratio. 3 years of work is promised, 1 year of work is produced each year.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tempest on Friday January 06 2017, @03:48PM
Some of this debt is abstracted so it's almost hard to comprehend. For example, US Dollars aren't just printed into existence. The Federal Reserve writes a check (with nothing backing it) to buy government bonds. Those bonds pay interest, so essentially US Dollars are borrowed into existence. So you can imagine how the debt accumulates fairly quickly with "Quantitative Easing" and other government spending. Governments don't have money of their own however, they obtain money through taxation. So government debt obligations are an abstraction for future tax revenues - mostly for our kids and their kids.
This is a good explanation of how our government debt works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 06 2017, @05:59PM
Who the hell does the world owe 217 trillion dollars to?
The Wall Street derivatives markets, the biggest mob run casino in the world.
The numbers are imaginary and irrational.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by DmT on Friday January 06 2017, @12:02PM
Now imagine an average rise of 1% in interest rates all over the world. Boom!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday January 06 2017, @03:16PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @01:07PM
There is 3.25 times as much debt as there is actual economic activity. Keep buying shit, folks, keep buying shit... and for the love of all that is good, ignore the man behind the curtain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @08:47PM
Keep buying shit, folks, keep buying shit... and for the love of all that is good,
Oh, wow! Pres. W Busch is posting right here on SoylentNews now! We've made the big time, peoples!!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday January 06 2017, @01:44PM
1/ It generates money for lenders, who basically don't do anything of value in society.
2/ National debts don't die with their owners, like personal debts do. What happens is, people who have done nothing to be saddled with debt inherit the debt incurred by their parents.
3/ The fractional reserve system is setup so money is created by debt. If you cancel the debt, you cancel money and society collapses.
1/ and 2/ are the reasons why newer generations are so pissed off about it. 3/ ensures that they won't be able to free themselves from it peacefully. Something will give at some point. Not in my generation, but soon.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday January 06 2017, @03:21PM
While I'll happily agree there are lots of things screwed up about our financial systems, this seems based on some fundamental (but popular) misconceptions.
1/ It generates money for lenders, who basically don't do anything of value in society.
Tell that to the person who used a credit card to buy Christmas gifts for their kids last month because of a temporary financial shortfall, with plans to pay it off over the next couple months. Tell that to the young couple who takes out a mortgage and gets to raise a family in a house, rather than shelling out for rent for many years hoping to try to save enough to buy a home someday.
Do people abuse debt? Obviously. But lenders provide an essential service that just about everyone on the planet is willing to pay for at some point. Do lenders overcharge or do shady stuff? Obviously too. But that doesn't mean ALL lenders are useless, and SOME fees are necessary to pay for the service and to account for risks of default.
Also, another way to view lenders is just as a formalized and more anonymous kind of "investor." Investors drive economic growth and development, essentially by lending out their money to others with expectation of a return. Lenders just formalize that agreement for the exact rate of return a bit more.
2/ National debts don't die with their owners, like personal debts do.
National debts are very complex instruments. People act like they're a sort of "household budget item" like a mortgage, but it's a lot more complicated than that. In particular, sovereign states with control over their currency often carry debt for all sorts of convenient reasons, and they are capable of paying off bits of it at any point by distributing more currency. Obviously doing this suddenly or unexpectedly can lead to inflation risks, but ultimately sovereign government debt is a kind of complex "balance sheet" with different columns that can be shifted when needed. (Those who will scream "Weimar Republic! Zimbabwe! Hyperinflation!" in response should read about the detailed causes of hyperinflation, which almost always involve government debts denominated in FOREIGN currencies and a subsequent inflationary spiral created by shifting exchange rates in an attempt to pay off debts. Debts owed in the sovereign currency itself very rarely have such dire effects.) Much more problematic are things like the EU states, where nations have entered into what I think is ultimately a truly bizarre and disastrous financial agreement to give up their sovereign currencies while not having control over fiscal policy throughout the EU. The problems with Greece, Spain, etc. a few years back are not going to go away, and they're likely to get worse in the future (if not in those countries, in some other EU nation that decides to act stupid with money). In such a problematic union, then growing national debts are indeed something to be VERY concerned about.
3/ The fractional reserve system is setup so money is created by debt. If you cancel the debt, you cancel money and society collapses.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of money, but given that it's tied up in the view from mainstream economics textbooks, I can't fault people for it. The reality is that from a historical and anthropological perspective, DEBT is actually the fundamental monetary instruments of societies. It always emerges BEFORE standard currency. The most famous example is probably the multitudes of Babylonian debt records we have going back centuries before currency emerges there (one of the first places with standard currency in the world). Money actual emerges as a way of denominating debt, not the other way around. The standard economics textbook version of money is that originates as a standard within barter economies, but historical and anthropological evidence suggests that TRUE independent barter economies never existed. Instead, societies without money tend to start by developing elaborate systems of indebtedness ("You did that task for me last year, so now I repay it by doing these two things for you.") Those debts eventually become formalized in records, first in stuff like "bar tabs" and informal individual recordkeeping, then on broader scales. Such formal enumerations of debt eventually tend to settle on some standard debt denomination, which is then taken to be a standard for "currency." But we know historically a number of cultures adopted such denominating elements even when those elements were NOT an actual medium of exchange. (E.g., even if your society denominates debt in "cattle," it doesn't mean people actually go around exchanging cattle all the time -- it just means that's a convenient unit for denominating debt.) Eventually, in more complex economies, or larger ones where not everyone may be trusted with such debt units -- a need for physical money to denominate debt emerges. E.g., if the bartender deals with a customer from out of town, they can't just depend on they guy to "repay someday," so a bar tab no longer makes sense. That's the one case (i.e., dealing with external transactions, where no ongoing societal relationship exists) that barter DOES tend to exist in pre-money societies, and it often becomes the impetus for introducing physical coin or whatever rather than just carrying debt records.
If we were more honest about the history of money and the way it emerges as a denomination of debt, we'd have a much different perspective on how to deal with such headlines. Human civilization depends on indebtedness. If no one is ever in any debt to anyone else, then no one is every doing anything to help anyone else, and that's not usually a good sign in a culture. Over the millennia, we've formalized such indebtedness and eventually denominated it into money, but at its heart it's still the same thing it was thousands of years ago -- a way to help someone get what they need now, with expectation they'll repay the favor later. Obviously it can be abused and get out of control, and debt has been used to justify a lot of nasty things throughout history... though so has the question for money.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday January 06 2017, @03:31PM
By the way - I should be clear that I agree with you at least to the extent that so many people believe the things you said (including lots of powerful people with lots of money) that we should be concerned about these things. My point is that a lot of the responses to various crises of debt are caused more by the myths we believe about money than how it actually functions.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday January 07 2017, @01:48AM
Tell that to the person who used a credit card to buy Christmas gifts for their kids last month because of a temporary financial shortfall, with plans to pay it off over the next couple months. Tell that to the young couple who takes out a mortgage and gets to raise a family in a house, rather than shelling out for rent for many years hoping to try to save enough to buy a home someday.
Just to point out, that the reason people have to go into debt in order to do things like buy a house, is precisely because the debt system allowed those assets to swell in value to the point where you need ever increasing mortgages. It is a self reinforcing circle. If there was no ability to borrow such vast sums of money, assets would drop down in value until people were able to afford them.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 06 2017, @06:04PM
There's nothing like a 'little' war to zero out the books. Replace the old lenders with new ones. All that money that went to the Royal Family now goes to the 'Founding Fathers'. Next thing you know you got a 'Whiskey Rebellion' on your hands.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Saturday January 07 2017, @05:31AM
(Horst Buchholz and James Cagney, after going over a list of expenditures, One, Two, Three)
I used to think this was just a joke, but now I have to wonder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @03:12PM
I can't repeat this often enough: If you divide GDP by debt, you get time, not a percentage.
For a smart person it's not a big deal because you can figure out what it actually means but most people aren't that knowledgeable and will be mislead to think that there's something special about 100%. Thus, it creates a suspicion that whoever keeps using that notion either wants to manipulate people or isn't very rigorous in this science shmience thingy.
(though in reality breaking a meme that enjoys considerable brainshare among public comes with a price and it's the most likely reason why even respectable folks have an interest to keep sticking to it. so it's just about lack of balls and integrity)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @01:28AM
Funny Money, Funny Times. Bring out the pitchforks to take care of it all.
The way its going, it will happen you know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @01:36AM
Shit. I guess I forgot to pay this month's credit card bill. Sorry all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07 2017, @03:16AM
You can easily have a mortgage that's for 3.25 times your income. So what's the problem?
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Saturday January 07 2017, @06:33AM
It's a pretty big problem when your expenditures are greater than your income, you're only paying the interest on the mortgage, and the only way you're staying afloat is borrowing against the equity you have in your home. At some point something has to give.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday January 07 2017, @07:48AM
At some point something has to give.
No, it doesn't, you steady-state ignoramous! It can go on indefinitely! There is this thing called infinity, and it lies in your future. So deficit can be piled upon deficit, and it never has to give, because, you know, numbers and math! Do you not understand this? Are you an idiot, or an English major, or a Republican small (handed) businessperson?