Happy New Year, U.S. National Debt!

sablescort said:
the national debt makes me so sick.
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Yeah, It makes me sick too. I'm sure it does for a lot of people as well. It's alarming and heightening the concerns too.
 
oh boy.. our gov seem dont take care of it.. or our people dont ask to our gov to pay off our debt.. ... that is american plm.. oooo i know i am american too but it is shame that they ingore it.. not good idea... oh well they ask for it.. not me.. i am careful on my debt.. so far none! whew! i knock the wood smile
 
Wokamuka said:
As stated, I'd thought that the U.S. national debt began with the American Revolutionary War.
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Oh, I guessed wrong by 20 years when our Nat'l debt started.

So it shows that it skyrocketed in last 20 years... jeez!

Thanks for the info and graphic, Wokamuka!
 
I saw on the news a few minutes ago that there will be a new clock installed on New Year's Day, with enough space for a quadrillion dollars. Should be an interesting day on DOW tomorrow.
Oh wait, isn't it an ancient Chinese curse to say "May you live in interesting times?" :D
 
They should also add a combined weight gain clock because America is fattening up so fast! *combined weight gain clock* 15 million tons.

Anyhow, the national debt is really sad and we might never be able to pay it off. The US GOVT SPENDS ABOUT 10 BILLION A MONTH ON WAR! THATS ABOUT 120 BILLION A YEAR ON WAR SO THE WAR HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR 5 YEARS...CLOSING IN ON 6 YEARS, THAT FIGURE IS MIND BOGGLING AND COULD HAVE GONE IN HEALTH CARE INFRASTRUCTURE AND MASS TRANSIT IMPROVEMENTS. SORRY FOR THE CAPS BECAUSE THE CAPS IS STUCK ON MY PHONE.
 
It's goin' to be very hard on Americans to deal with their lives and everythin'. Money could cause people sick and even, death.
 
What would be the difference if the debt never occured?
 
I think the greater the debt, the more de-valued the dollar with increasing inflation. The benefit would be for other nations to have cheap labor/manufacturing - sort of how the U.S. views China. European businesses are sending their factories to here. I think it's been over the past 10 years that many European/EU countries have declared their WWII debts fully honored. The "dollar" value for them has increased; decreasing manufacturing desirability.
 
Jacob said:
What would be the difference if the debt never occured?
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:hmm: That's a good question, indeed.

Well, There's no way knowing what would have occurred when it is debt-free. I don't think anyone have an idea of how it would be like because we've been in debt for as long as we all can remember.

But, However, If we were to be a debt-free world, I think a lot of things would change in a tremendous way. Would the world be a happy place? I don't think that would happen. The more the money a country has, the more chance they will be able to try to be a powerful nation.

Sure, It'd be nice to be living in a debt-free nation but at the same time, would it make things better? We don't know that. That only remains to be seen.
 
Jacob said:
...and it remains to be unanswered.
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In order to achieve independence, the United States had a national debt. I'm not understanding your question. If there were no debt, are you insinuating American to continue to be part of the United Kingdom?
 
No, wokamuka -- Just the opposite, I was curious what would make the difference if that national debt never occured, but to what Jolie77 has said, we don't know, so it remains unaswered.
 
There have been movements asking the G8 to forgive debts on developing countries. If there were no debt, they would be no motivation for nations to better themselves? Isolationist policies in full force?
 
That leaves us plenty of questions, don't we all?
 
Jacob said:
What would be the difference if the debt never occured?
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Debt is not something that stays on paper. You are paying an interest for it. So (using example numbers for making it easy) if the interest rates you borrowed are %10, then you pay one trillion dollars every year for you ten trillion dollars debt. This interest rate keeps eating up your annual budget and leaves less money on your hand to spend on education, health and so on.. If your debt gets so big , you end up having little to no money to spend for running the country and you are being forced to borrow even more money in order to cover it. This cycle goes on until the interest you need to pay exceeds your annual income. After that you cant even pay the interests and you declare bankruptcy as a country.

So the effects of national debt can be seen in everyday life. More foreign debt you have, more of your tax payments are transfered out of country , instead of returning you in terms of services .

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Wow, Hermes, thank you for the clarification, that is really interesting... wonder if they have gone bankrupt and things would have changed all of it. :dizzy:
 
Hermes said:
Debt is not something that stays on paper. You are paying an interest for it. So (using example numbers for making it easy) if the interest rates you borrowed are %10, then you pay one trillion dollars every year for you ten trillion dollars debt. This interest rate keeps eating up your annual budget and leaves less money on your hand to spend on education, health and so on.. If your debt gets so big , you end up having little to no money to spend for running the country and you are being forced to borrow even more money in order to cover it. This cycle goes on until the interest you need to pay exceeds your annual income. After that you cant even pay the interests and you declare bankruptcy as a country.

So the effects of national debt can be seen in everyday life. More foreign debt you have, more of your tax payments are transfered out of country , instead of returning you in terms of services .

-
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Don't quote me on this but I seem to recall hearing that, just the interest alone on our deficit, is running 2 billion dollars a day!
 
Tousi said:
Don't quote me on this but I seem to recall hearing that, just the interest alone on our deficit, is running 2 billion dollars a day!
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You're correct on that one. I had googled it up and found an article from 2 years ago stating the same thing.

The longer answer is that the US has been able to tap into a river of foreign credit by virtue of the third deficit: the trade deficit. Foreigners, in the aggregate, sell about $2 billion per day more of goods and services to Americans than they buy from Americans. The Americans, in the aggregate, make up the difference by selling investments to foreigners, most conspicuously US Treasury bills. The traffic in this two-way street has been growing rapidly.
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US dollar, trade deficit - MoneyWeek

I found this part interesting even though this article was written 2 years ago and it still stands true to this day.

It is the US’ singular role in the world economy that will turn US deficits into global economic disaster.
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