June 12, 200521 yr well, if the US does have a vault for thier money other than fort knox then its probly filled with IOU's right now. i started to get interested in this the other day in economics class so i did a quick searc and heres what i found. the federal debt (not deficite) is currently 7.8trillion and rises about 1.6billion dollars each day. if that isnt bad enough, in order to pay it off, every american citizen would have to pay about 26 THOUSAND dollars!I dont know about you, but i barely have a spare $26 to spend right now... this year the gov't spent 208B on the interest to those that they owe money to. the top three areas of our spending our social security, dep. of defence, health and human services, and the tresury which includes the interest payments. this is not much info actually but if you wish to find more, type in your search query into your address bar or visit my sources: http://www.federalbudget.com/ http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
June 12, 200521 yr we (america) cares :roll: its kinda lame knowing your country owes money to everyone, but its been like that for a long time. and people are too busy with their lives to even think about the debt. thats just what i think :o
June 13, 200521 yr Not everyone would have to pay 26k. We could just get the rich people to pay until they're the same as the middle class, and the spillover money could go to the poor. And everyone would be equal.
June 13, 200521 yr Author that 26k is just kinda a little useless fact about it all. we will never be told to pay off the national debt like that...i hope
June 13, 200521 yr I'm sure many people would just say "[bleep] you" in one form or another if we ever actually are told to do that. I'm not even sure who the "they" would be to tell us that, but I'm sure it'd end badly (for them).
June 13, 200521 yr damn, idve thought that the latest war wouldve gven them a chance to pay a fair bit back. note: this is not a US-invading-iraq-for-oil crack, i agree with the US and what they did. i am simply outlining that in most wars/conflicts (whatever the scale) countrys like the US sell their technologies (mainly defence) to other countrys because a war is the best chance to put this technology on display. not realy sure what Australia's debt is. about 5yrs ago i heard a figure like 450Bn (doesnt seem like much for a country, but times it by 17 which is about 'US:Australia' people ratio). but recently ive heard figures around 90Bn which sounds like crap. Edit: damn typos making my sentences make no sence Edit 2: Recently though, the international debt for some 3rd world countrys has been canceled. Chances are that was a fair bit of the USs money that went down with it.
June 13, 200521 yr Author lmoa, yea, that would be bad. give someone in north korea the gps coordinates of the white house and tell them to go ahead and test thier nuke. i think the iraqi war actually hurt us this time...ww2 was the reason we aint dirt poor simply because we were seilling what we made but now everything is either bering blown up, shot up, or just plan consumed by us. i havent seen deficite figures but its prety bad too and that just adds to the debt. the iraqi war is fine and will eventually end when all the suicidal mercenaries are used up...since they are only a one-use type of weapon.
June 13, 200521 yr lmoa, yea, that would be bad. give someone in north korea the gps coordinates of the white house and tell them to go ahead and test thier nuke. i think the iraqi war actually hurt us this time...ww2 was the reason we aint dirt poor simply because we were seilling what we made but now everything is either bering blown up, shot up, or just plan consumed by us. i havent seen deficite figures but its prety bad too and that just adds to the debt. the iraqi war is fine and will eventually end when all the suicidal mercenaries are used up...since they are only a one-use type of weapon. *BUZZER* srry wrong answer During WWII, you weren't allowed to buy very much. If your lisence plate ended in an odd number, you could only purchase gasoline on certain days of the week, and if ur lisence plate ended in an even number, you could only buy gasoline on the other days of the week. It was like this for almost every product. People kept the money because they couldn't spend it. - Only character in Runescape History maxed out in RSC and RS2
June 13, 200521 yr During WWII, you weren't allowed to buy very much. If your lisence plate ended in an odd number, you could only purchase gasoline on certain days of the week, and if ur lisence plate ended in an even number, you could only buy gasoline on the other days of the week. It was like this for almost every product. People kept the money because they couldn't spend it. thats a good idea, would make people richer
June 13, 200521 yr During WWII, you weren't allowed to buy very much. If your lisence plate ended in an odd number, you could only purchase gasoline on certain days of the week, and if ur lisence plate ended in an even number, you could only buy gasoline on the other days of the week. It was like this for almost every product. People kept the money because they couldn't spend it. thats a good idea, would make people richer It was a good idea, and it did make people wealthier (remember we were just getting out of the great depression) - Only character in Runescape History maxed out in RSC and RS2
June 13, 200521 yr KnightLite, minkis18 was talking about after ww2, not during. And he's right, the USA helped rebuild Europe at great profit to them.
June 13, 200521 yr limpxbizkid: AU$425 billion foreign debt. u relize it was the labour government that got us into that debt and the liberal party has been stuck 2 pay it of and has done alot of paying it of!! Aussie Aussie Aussie, :D
June 13, 200521 yr Oddly enough it was during a time when Australia was in prolonged economic recession, suffering from eight quarters of declining economic growth. What do you honestly expect from any government faced with that sort of problem? Doing nothing would've been a VERY bad decision, if nothing had to been to fix it Australia wouldn't be in the position it is now, chances are we'd still be fighting to fix the ecconomy since Howard likes to line the pockets of the rich rather than help the people in the middle and lower-class.
June 13, 200521 yr Doing nothing would've been a VERY bad decision, if nothing had to been to fix it Australia wouldn't be in the position it is now, chances are we'd still be fighting to fix the ecconomy since Howard likes to line the pockets of the rich rather than help the people in the middle and lower-class. Not really; previous to the great depression government investment was never usually considered to kickstart a recessive economy. It was thought that you should let it ride out and I would tend to agree with it. I personally don't like loans and would rather live with what I could afford then to take out uncesseary loans; but then again I don't run a country. Ohh yeah as an aside giving rich people more money should theoretically create a flow down effect. They have more money to spend so they are more inclined to pay for goods serviced by people of a lower class. If it works or not is another matter. I don't think any of the governments ideas are good but I'm a radical so my idea's will never usually get implemented anyway. John is just the better of two evil's in my book.
June 13, 200521 yr in a way ever country owes money to another country. its just they way things work. and as for the amount 208B or something thats because america is so big it can afford to be in that much debt.
June 13, 200521 yr I wouldn't worry about it too much. You've still got the strongest and most powerful in the world, and are incredibly rich. :D "Da mihi castitatem et continentam, sed noli modo"
June 13, 200521 yr A lot of you guys are confusing the national debt with the trade deficit. As for having to pay off the debt? Picture a school yard full of kids, most of the kids are 6, some are 7, some are 8, a few are 9 and then there is a really rich kid who's 17. This kid borrowed some money from a lot of the 9 year olds and some of the younger kids as well. If you lent him a dollar what would you do? You can remind him, but why bother? -You're getting intrest on your loan. -He's rich, you know he can pay you back...eventually -And he's three times your size... and he has some big friends. You cant fight the US (literally), and there's no point in making threats to it since the US knows you can't back them up (you wont risk open war)
June 15, 200521 yr thats why i said debt not deficite... I wasn't talking to you silly :wink: Example: in a way ever country owes money to another country. its just they way things work. and as for the amount 208B or something thats because america is so big it can afford to be in that much debt. Example 2: we (america) cares :roll: its kinda lame knowing your country owes money to everyone, but its been like that for a long time. and people are too busy with their lives to even think about the debt. thats just what i think :o :P
June 15, 200521 yr I think this has been discussed before, but whatever. Yea the debt is really real, and i think almost everyone knows about it, nothing new, politicians aren't worring to much about it because the people aren't worring to much about it. It ofcourse gona kill us in the end, that and social security (one of the factors in the decline of Roman Empire). What can you do though, getting rid of debt won't be solved over night but must be payed back slowly because we are just throughing money away now. I guess the debt keeps us at check, we earn money because we spend money. Visit my DeviantArt Page at http://vladmoney.deviantart.com
June 15, 200521 yr we (america) cares :roll: its kinda lame knowing your country owes money to everyone, but its been like that for a long time. and people are too busy with their lives to even think about the debt. thats just what i think :o well, its not like we are the only country with debt. Every country has debt, so its not lame that we have debt, its how much debt we have that is lame. That might have been what you were getting at, but I just wanted to clarify :wink:
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