US debt in perspective: If the US were a person that made 55 K a year.

The only reason individuals can own assets is because we setup a system predicated on legal ownership with the ideal it is for the better good of most people. We the people can create whatever system is in the best interest of everybody, if that means nobody can earn over $10million dollars that is our choice. Just how in the NBA there is a max salary, we could create a max salary in the US. Money is an abstract idea created by man.

7% of the US population believes their income is in the top 1%.

Being able to have ownership of nearly every piece of physical property is an abstract idea. The Native Americans didn’t believe people could “own” land, so they were happy to “sell” it to Europeans who bartered with garbage then used the military to enforce claims of ownership. Why did we stop there, why not have somebody own the sky? Could someone own all of the earth’s oxygen? What about the sun, I would like to stake legal claim to the sun then charge everybody rent for using its ray.

 

Well we do have no-fly zones, and crazy environmentalists. That's not so far off.

 

Government spending is not supposed to get a direct monetary return of capital. Because it doesn’t have an attractive ROI doesn’t mean it’s a failure or success. If it is spent on the right types of education or other beneficial programs it can increase the countries GDP far beyond the cost.

WWII caused the country to spend insane amounts of money far beyond revenues and plunged the country into massive deficits, but the result of all that spending ended the great depression and began an era of economic prosperity. For decades prior politicians tried to tighten budgets and decrease spending and hoard cash to end the depression to no avail. Did WWII expenditures have a good direct measurable ROI? No.

I’m not saying deficits are always good, but decreasing the deficit will have negative effects on the economy, in the short run it will decrease GDP since the government is spending less money. Will that become a compounded problem? Will the positive long-term effects of reduced debt outweigh costs of less government spending? Those are difficult questions.

 

They're not difficult questions because the government is on a path it can not sustain.

Germany is Europe's richest economy and only had .1% growth the previous quarter, socialism is failing and our spending has never been this high in recent decades.

 

Oh great. The typical Dem's argument that government "investments" end up more than paying for themselves in the future due to increased GDP.

When will this broken idea stop? We're at 100% debt-to-GDP ratio, and it is only projected to get worse. When will these arguments be put to rest? Will it take a 200% debt-to-GDP ratio? 300%? How many times, and over how many years does it have to be proven incorrect, and a failed ideal?

Bringing WWII spending into the picture is a flawed argument. The Constitution mandates defense. So even if GDP hadn't increased after WWII, it was still the right decision to make.

 

Maybe it is time to reduce spending, yes our debt is very large. I was saying you can't judge the sucess of government expenditures by government ROI. You can judge an individuals financial decisions by ROI.

WWII expenditures being good for the economy was counter-intuitive. At the time most believed the economy would be saved by reduced spending and balanced budgets, when in fact the opposite approach had far greater success. I'm not saying similar spending will get us out of the current recession or current federal debt problems, only that the best solution may be a radical non-intuive idea.

 

Agreed... but they also are very restricted in what they can do with it. It isn't like they can take trillions in the social security pool and stick it in a vault (that would be stupid... it depreciates just sitting there) Using it for expenses seemed better than borrowing money for other expenses and paying interest to someone. Up until the last few years we always were taking in more than we were paying out.

Anyway... it is risky for the government to cut spending unless it is done very carefully because it is a source of income for many of the people that pay taxes. Greece massively cut goverment spending over the last few years and their problem is getting worse... not better.

Do we need to be careful and not wasteful? Of course! There are all kinds of shitty govenment programs from long long ago that just keep going and going and going... and we all see sometimes that we are making stupid decisions. I used to live of Forster near 162nd... and they build a culvert for salmon that was like 4 million or something... and it was a teeny little stream that I doubt ever had a fish in it. We can't wast money like that. I love salmon sure... but come one... at some point you have to say we can't afford that.

 

How so? Either we default completely or you cut spending, the only one restricting us are dems and Bush-era republicans.

We DO have trillions of dollars just sitting there, hiding in oversea escrow funds. We have no way to pay for our overzealous promises.

Dude no, you're not willing to take responsibility or recognize the magnitude of your failed policies.

Canada did exactly what Greece needs to do, and came out just fine. You are obsessed with worrying about Unions or small groups of people when you should be worried about the 46 trillion dollars in future benefits we've promised. Your post does not connect with the current math.

 

Sure you can. And you have to. Otherwise there is no reason to stop spending or keep spending in check. Or, on the other hand, there is absolutely no reason to spend at all.

If you can't make some reasonable estimate on the future value of a high-speed rail system, how do you know if you should spend $1billion or $1trillion or nothing?