US debt surpasses $23 trillion for first time

[oyarde]

Seems legit.

I need to borrow about 4K in FRN's from you .

[devil21]

Under the fractional reserve banking system, debt principal doesn't matter because it was created out of nothing and has no value. It can be "deleted" as easily as it was "created". All that matters is whether the interest on said debt can be serviced, since interest is the only portion that has value, as the proceeds of actual labor/energy expended to obtain it. It's why we clamor to pay interest that doesn't actually exist outside of the created principal. It's also why "loans" are front-loaded with interest payments, credit card minimum payments generally only cover interest, etc. The "lender" wants the earned money first, as that is what has value. The principal is mere accounting entry and is icing on the cake if repaid.

"Settle your debt for much less than you owe!" commercials sorta give this away. A bank can erase the principal without repercussion since that number is held on both sides of the ledger, as an asset and a liability and erasing it is a zero-sum exercise. It is the interest that they want paid, whether it's a personal debt or a "national" debt.

[enhanced_deficit]

Granted there is globalist neocons funded big gummit on steriods MAGAing in terms of national debt, GOP conservative Ted Cruz had suggested that GOP's current NY bred leadership was RINO.

[Ender]

I'm not doubting that. But no kid wants to grow up to be 'among the hardest workers in the world' when the work is menial labor and menial labor can no longer can put a kid through college--so the kid must take loans. And, nature being what it is, a vast majority of the people currently in higher education are literally just wasting their time, using borrowed money, to pay for a useless certificate. So now the kid is saddled with a debt that he or she can NEVER repay: because the humanities degree they received is worthless. Worse case scenario, the kid becomes a teacher, thus functioning, effectively, as an integral step in a positive feedback loop driving early (read important) education further into farce.

Bad education------>Poor teachers----->Worse education------>Worse teachers.
Government financed loans------>bad education------>default------->Government financed bailout. On a massive scale.

What happened the last time a enormous amount of loans went into default simultaneously? Did the big money consolidate further? Yeah, I think that happened.
Gov. should have no business in education--that is truism. Reality: not only do they have business in education, they have BIG business in education.

These people could be martians, it makes no difference. 23 trillion. What is the interest payment on that?

The answer is to take .gov out of education.

[Swordsmyth]

The answer is to take .gov out of education.

Which we will never be able to do so long as the left can import reinforcements.

[Madison320]

Your basic premise is wrong; that was one of the points in the article I posted, so not MY "premise"...

It wasn't me that promised to get rid of the US national debt either, but Donald Drumpf.
It's obvious that, bankruptcy or using the US military to kill the banks not withstanding, that the only "normal" ways to lower debt is to lower spending and/or increase income!

Trump has increased spending and lowered tax income.
Just like his predecessor presidents, since Reagan, making the US national debt skyrocket.

With the average American family having to pay more than $5000 in taxes per year only to pay off the increase of the debt through interest.

It was hard to tell that was an article, all you had was a link at the end.

Anyway that article makes it sound like the primary reason for the debt has been rate cuts. And that's wrong. It's entirely possible that those rate cuts actually increased revenue.

The problem is spending. Period.

[Firestarter]

It's entirely possible that those rate cuts actually increased revenue.

I agree that it isn't impossible but highly unlikely that through slashing taxes for the corporate elite tax revenue will increase .

The problem is spending. Period.

I'm no politician or economist. I originally posted a summary of the article because it is a good overview (with some additional information on how we got here) and because I see it as a major problem that politricksters, including president Donald, don't ever keep their promises.

[Firestarter]

The world now has a record debt bubble of 188 trillion, and that continues to grow rapidly. That number has risen by 24 trillion dollars since 2016.

The United States government is 23 trillion dollars in debt with private Americans an additional 14 trillion dollars indebted.
The banksters are extracting more than 500 billion dollars in interest from this debt every year, and with rising debts this will probably escalate in the years ahead.

It is a form of enslavement that is deeply insidious. In essence, we have been collectively enslaved, to pay back all of that money with interest. Of course we won’t ever pay back all that debt, so interests will continue to rise.
IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva proudly proclaimed:

Global debt — both public and private — has reached an all-time high of $188 trillion. This amounts to about 230 percent of world output.

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/11...ever-seen.html

[Zippyjuan]

It was hard to tell that was an article, all you had was a link at the end.

Anyway that article makes it sound like the primary reason for the debt has been rate cuts. And that's wrong. It's entirely possible that those rate cuts actually increased revenue.

The problem is spending. Period.

Can you then solve it with spending cuts? Cut $1 trillion from this to help balance the budget:



Deficits + Spending - Revenues

If spending goes up but revenues stay the same, the deficit will be higher. If spending stays the same but revenues are smaller, the deficit will be higher. Revenues AND spending matter- not just spending.

Did revenues rise after the tax cuts?



https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxv...ay-itself-2018

[PAF]

The answer is to get .gov out of welfare- which should always be local. Most "semi-literate peasants from third world failed socialist states" (usually caused by the US) are some of the hardest workers on the planet. And, most try to get to the US so they can work- not so they can live off the dole.

Just sayin.......

+ Rep

[Madison320]

Can you then solve it with spending cuts? Cut $1 trillion from this to help balance the budget:



Deficits + Spending - Revenues

If spending goes up but revenues stay the same, the deficit will be higher. If spending stays the same but revenues are smaller, the deficit will be higher. Revenues AND spending matter- not just spending.

Did revenues rise after the tax cuts?



https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxv...ay-itself-2018

I didn't say tax revenues would rise by much if we cut taxes. Revenues will stay the same or drop whether we cut or raise tax rates. Your chart confirms this. We're somewhere near the peak of the laffer curve so we CAN'T raise much more tax revenue. It's economically impossible.

We're spending well over 4 trillion a year, we need to cut at least a trillion from that not just "special" spending.

[Madison320]

Under the fractional reserve banking system, debt principal doesn't matter because it was created out of nothing and has no value. It can be "deleted" as easily as it was "created".

I hear this myth all the time. This is not true. The money can't be deleted just as easily as it was created. Somebody owns that money that was created out of thin air. You can't just "delete" it from them. It's easy to give someone money created out of thin air, it's extremely difficult to take it away from them.

[Swordsmyth]

I hear this myth all the time. This is not true. The money can't be deleted just as easily as it was created. Somebody owns that money that was created out of thin air. You can't just "delete" it from them. It's easy to give someone money created out of thin air, it's extremely difficult to take it away from them.

That's why they want a purely digital monetary system.
They will be able to delete anyone's money at will.

[r3volution 3.0]

I know what will solve the problem.

Import a couple million more semi-literate peasants from third world failed socialist states to go on the dole.

Yeah, that'll do it.

The electorate has always consisted of semi-literate peasants.

The present government, elected by those same semi-literate peasants, has increased spending by many billions.

So will the next.

[Anti Federalist]

The electorate has always consisted of semi-literate peasants.

The present government, elected by those same semi-literate peasants, has increased spending by many billions.

So will the next.

Untrue.

Early observers of America remarked how well versed, well read and educated they were.

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville writes,

The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of instruction amongst the Anglo-Americans must consider the same object from two different points of view. If he only singles out the learned, he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but if he counts the ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most enlightened community in the world. The whole population … is situated between these two extremes.

In his day, American education was notable for being both widespread and mediocre. In fact, it was so widespread that he describes the typical pioneer in this way:

Everything about him is primitive and unformed, but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.

In the 1830s, when Tocqueville visited the United States, even the peculiar figure of the roughneck pioneer, “with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers,” was educated.

But what conclusions does he draw from what was in his time such a unique phenomenon?

It cannot be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart. But I by no means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still further from thinking, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write. True information is mainly derived from experience; and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them much at the present day.

This did not start to change until the great migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Migrations that were cut off by the Immigration Act of 1924.

[r3volution 3.0]

Untrue.

Early observers of America remarked how well versed, well read and educated they were.

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville writes,

The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of instruction amongst the Anglo-Americans must consider the same object from two different points of view. If he only singles out the learned, he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but if he counts the ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most enlightened community in the world. The whole population … is situated between these two extremes.

In his day, American education was notable for being both widespread and mediocre. In fact, it was so widespread that he describes the typical pioneer in this way:

Everything about him is primitive and unformed, but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.

In the 1830s, when Tocqueville visited the United States, even the peculiar figure of the roughneck pioneer, “with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers,” was educated.

But what conclusions does he draw from what was in his time such a unique phenomenon?

It cannot be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart. But I by no means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still further from thinking, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write. True information is mainly derived from experience; and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them much at the present day.

This did not start to change until the great migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Migrations that were cut off by the Immigration Act of 1924.

Reminds me of the European accounts of the Noble Savages of the Wherever Islands...

Tocqueville didn't stay around long enough, or investigate carefully enough, to really understand what was going on.

As to what was actually going on, I'd suggest Rothbard's lecture series (available at mises.org) on 19th century American history.

Everything monstrous in 20th century American history was already present in 1850, or 1800.

For those of you who think culture is important, progressivism was a direct outgrowth of the yankee culture.

...and I mean direct, like top progressives were children of yankee ministers in upstate New York.

It had nothing to do with immigrants (other than the original English ones about which oyarde might object).

[Swordsmyth]

Reminds me of the European accounts of the Noble Savages of the Wherever Islands...

Tocqueville didn't stay around long enough, or investigate carefully enough, to really understand what was going on.

As to what was actually going on, I'd suggest Rothbard's lecture series (available at mises.org) on 19th century American history.

Everything monstrous in 20th century American history was already present in 1850, or 1800.

For those of you who think culture is important, progressivism was a direct outgrowth of the yankee culture.

...and I mean direct, like top progressives were children of yankee ministers in upstate New York.

It had nothing to do with immigrants (other than the original English ones about which oyarde might object).

The later immigrants made everything worse no matter what you think of the original Americans.

[r3volution 3.0]

The later immigrants made everything worse no matter what you think of the original Americans.

Definitely, except for the facts, ...which show that all of the crushingly expensive programs (SS, both socialized medicine programs) were created before the immigrants arrived. I mean the third world (mostly Hispanic) immigrants. Your retort, of course, is that somehow the Germans, Italians, and Irish (who now constitute the MAGA coalition) were at fault, despite the fact that yankees were responsible for the progressive era, the obvious predecessor of these things. And, of course, immigrants are incorrigibly anti-liberty..

[Swordsmyth]

Definitely, except for the facts, ...which show that all of the crushingly expensive programs (SS, both socialized medicine programs) were created before the immigrants arrived. I mean the third world (mostly Hispanic) immigrants. Your retort, of course, is that somehow the Germans, Italians, and Irish (who now constitute the MAGA coalition) were at fault, despite the fact that yankees were responsible for the progressive era, the obvious predecessor of these things. And, of course, immigrants are incorrigibly anti-liberty..

The immigrants in the mid 1800's were from anti-liberty cultures and they gave the native anti-liberty types the reinforcements they needed to enact the foundation of big government, many of their descendants have since assimilated to some degree (although the immigrants also dragged Americans towards them because they came in excessive numbers) and are now better than the outright communists being imported to build a prison state on that foundation.

[r3volution 3.0]

The immigrants in the mid 1800's were from anti-liberty cultures and they gave the native anti-liberty types the reinforcements they needed to enact the foundation of big government, many of their descendants have since assimilated to some degree (although the immigrants also dragged Americans towards them because they came in excessive numbers) and are now better than the outright communists being imported to build a prison state on that foundation.

That's a nice story, but it directly contradicts the historical facts.

You're still shocked and incredulous when I say the GOP was the big government party in the 19th century, aren't you?

All I can say, ad nauseum, is listen to Rothbard's lecture series on this topic, and also read his essay on progressivism.

As for the former:

https://mises.org/library/american-e...0-world-war-ii

[Swordsmyth]

That's a nice story, but it directly contradicts the historical facts.

You're still shocked and incredulous when I say the GOP was the big government party in the 19th century, aren't you?

All I can say, ad nauseum, is listen to Rothbard's lecture series on this topic, and also read his essay on progressivism.

As for the former:

https://mises.org/library/american-e...0-world-war-ii

I know Republicans started as a big government party, and immigrants are why they won the Presidency with Lincoln.

Long before 1848, German radicals had begun to arrive in Illinois, where they quickly entered into the legal and political circles in which Lincoln traveled. One of them, Gustav Korner, was a student revolutionary at the University of Munich who had been imprisoned by German authorities...
...
Within a decade, Korner would pass the Illinois bar, win election to the legislature and be appointed to the state Supreme Court. Korner and Lincoln formed an alliance that would become so close that the student revolutionary from Frankfurt would eventually be one of seven personal delegates-at-large named by Lincoln to serve at the critical Republican State Convention in May 1860, which propelled the Springfield lawyer into that year’s presidential race. Through Korner, Lincoln met and befriended many of the German radicals who, after the failure of the 1848 revolution, fled to Illinois and neighboring Wisconsin. Along with Korner on Lincoln’s list of personal delegates-at-large to the 1860 convention was Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker, a lawyer from Mannheim who had served as a liberal legislator in the lower chamber of the Baden State Assembly before leading an April 1848 uprising in the region—an uprising cheered on by the newspaper Marx briefly edited during that turbulent period, Neue Rheinische Zeitung—Organ der Demokratie.
...
The failure of the 1848 revolts, and the brutal crackdowns that followed, led many leading European radicals to take refuge in the United States, and Lincoln’s circle of supporters would eventually include some of Karl Marx’s closest associates and intellectual sparring partners, including Joseph Weydemeyer and August Willich.
...
http://www.isreview.org/issues/79/fe...-lincoln.shtml



In Red Republicans we learn of nine European revolutionaries convicted of treason and banished to Australia. They escaped to the united States and Canada. Three or four of them, with no military experience, became Union generals, joining at least three other Marx confidants who already held that rank. "Every man of the nine became a member of the Canadian Parliament, a governor of a territory or state in the Union, party leader, prime minister or attorney general."

Many of these men, not all, were Germans, some four thousand of whom escaped to this country. Known as Forty-Eighters, they quickly added violent abolitionism and feminism to their Communist beliefs. In Missouri, Forty-Eighter Franz Sigel became a Union general and had uniforms made for his Third Infantry Regiment that closely resembled the uniforms worn by socialist revolutionaries in Germany in 1849.

Forty-Eighters who became high ranking Union commanders included Colonel Friedrich Salomon, Ninth Wisconsin, Colonel Fritz Anneke, Thirty Fourth Wisconsin and Colonel Konrad Krez, Twenty Seventh Wisconsin. Communist journalist Karl Heinzen wrote: "If you have to blow up half a continent and cause a bloodbath to destroy the party of barbarism, you should have no scruples of conscience. Anyone who would not joyously sacrifice his life for the satisfaction of exterminating a million barbarians is not a true republican." Heinzen came to this country and supported Lincoln.

Joseph Weydemeyer had to flee Germany when the Communist Revolution failed. In London he belonged to the Communist League and was a close friend of Marx and Engels. He came to this country in 1851, supported Lincoln, maintained his close friendship with Marx and became a Brigadier General in the Union Army.

Dedicated socialist Richard Hinton had to leave England. In this country he became a Union colonel, a Radical Republican and an associate of maniac John Brown's. So was Allan Pinkerton, who financed him. At one meeting with Brown, Pinkerton told his son: "Look well upon that man. He is greater than Napoleon and just as great as George Washington." Yes, Pinkerton was the great detective who founded the agency that bears his name. Why didn't you know that? In Kansas, mass murderer Brown enjoyed the support of wealthy Yankees (the Secret Six). August Bondi and Charles Kaiser, who worked with Brown there, were Forty Eighters.

The GOP Convention of 1860 took place in Chicago, a flaming center of German Communism. Many such Reds were delegates, including Johann Bernhard Stallo and Frederick Hassaurek from Ohio and Heinrich Bornstein from Missouri, a friend of Marx. Socialist Carl Schurz was a delegate from Wisconsin. To guarantee German support in Illinois, Lincoln secretly bought the Illinois Staats Anzieger. After the election he awarded the editor a consular post.

Socialist Friedrich Kapp was editor of the New Yorker-Abendzeitung. He wrote propaganda for the new Republican Party and helped mightily to deliver the German-American vote to Lincoln. With other Forty-Eighters, he was an elector for Lincoln in 1860. Remember, these are just a few examples. You really need to read the book. Call, toll-free 1 (800) 288-4677 to order.

Germany was a decentralized collection of independent states. The goal of the Forty Eighters there was a "united, indivisible republic," in which those states would be dissolved. Land and private industry would be confiscated. The government would be transformed into a Socialist dictatorship. These are the ideas the Forty Eighters came to implement here. By the way, that is what Hitler did in the 1930s. That is what the fleeing Communists found so attractive in Lincoln.

More at: http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan30.htm



More at:
Was Lincoln a Marxist?

[r3volution 3.0]

Lincoln had connections to European Marxism through the American Hegelians, but this isn't actually important, in itself.

It says something indirectly about the yankee ideology (about which you would learn much more by listening to that Rothbard lecture).

But there's a much bigger picture, which you're missing.

Lincoln was not in any way exceptional.

And none of this had anything to do with Germany or any other European state.

It had to do with the people who left that continent centuries before, and why they did that.

[TheTexan]

Trump is making debt great again

[Swordsmyth]

Lincoln had connections to European Marxism through the American Hegelians, but this isn't actually important, in itself.

It says something indirectly about the yankee ideology (about which you would learn much more by listening to that Rothbard lecture).

But there's a much bigger picture, which you're missing.

Lincoln was not in any way exceptional.

And none of this had anything to do with Germany or any other European state.

It had to do with the people who left that continent centuries before, and why they did that.

The Republicans wouldn't have won the midwest and the party would have died if it wasn't for the European immigrants.
The North also would have lost the war if it hadn't had the population advantage from the leftist immigrants.

[Origanalist]

[PAF]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Origanalist again.

[devil21]

I hear this myth all the time. This is not true. The money can't be deleted just as easily as it was created. Somebody owns that money that was created out of thin air. You can't just "delete" it from them. It's easy to give someone money created out of thin air, it's extremely difficult to take it away from them.

Depends on who it's deleted from and under what voluntary or involuntary cover story.

[Madison320]

Depends on who it's deleted from and under what voluntary or involuntary cover story.

Give me an example.

[Madison320]

That's why they want a purely digital monetary system.
They will be able to delete anyone's money at will.

I wouldn't go quite that far. Deleting money in someone's bank account tends to piss people (voters) off. Plus they could do that now. If we ever get to that point we'd already basically be in a Mad Max scenario. Food lines, lack of electricity and running water, massive civil unrest, that type of thing.

The main reason they want electronic money is for tracking purposes. I'm not too worried about that happening because if they tried it we'd go right to an underground economy with precious metals as the currency.

I agree that government would love to have digital money but that's one of those things that the majority is against so it'll be tough for them to pass it.

What I'm MUCH more worried about is the communist/socialist movement because the majority DOES support it. The appeal of stealing from the wealthy minority to give to the majority never ends. Just watch a few seconds of the democratic debates. Actually you don't need to I can sum it up one line. "VOTE FOR ME AND I'LL STEAL FOR YOU!"

[Swordsmyth]

I wouldn't go quite that far. Deleting money in someone's bank account tends to piss people (voters) off. Plus they could do that now. If we ever get to that point we'd already basically be in a Mad Max scenario. Food lines, lack of electricity and running water, massive civil unrest, that type of thing.

The main reason they want electronic money is for tracking purposes. I'm not too worried about that happening because if they tried it we'd go right to an underground economy with precious metals as the currency.

I agree that government would love to have digital money but that's one of those things that the majority is against so it'll be tough for them to pass it.

What I'm MUCH more worried about is the communist/socialist movement because the majority DOES support it. The appeal of stealing from the wealthy minority to give to the majority never ends. Just watch a few seconds of the democratic debates. Actually you don't need to I can sum it up one line. "VOTE FOR ME AND I'LL STEAL FOR YOU!"

All they need is to create justifications for it and use it sparingly at first.
They will acclimatize people to it and then expand its use.