[Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

Tue Dec 9 22:23:01 PST 2014

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the correction.  I'll sleep easier tonight.

nfg  (guess what one of my mean teenage bosses made the "f" into)

________________________________
From: Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2014 10:02 PM
To: Gier, Nicholas (ngier at uidaho.edu); Paul Rumelhart
Cc: Moscow Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

Only a third of US debt is owned by foreign countries--China and Japan each have 7%. 65% is held domestically: Social Security (16%), other government entities (13%) and the Federal Reserve (12%).
Who Owns The Most U.S. Debt?<http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/10/28/who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt/>

[image]<http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/10/28/who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt/>

Who Owns The Most U.S. Debt?<http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/10/28/who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt/>
The U.S. debt continues to climb. Who owns the majority of it? How much is owned by foreign nations? The answers might surprise you.

View on www.forbes.com<http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2014/10/28/who-owns-the-most-u-s-debt/>

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Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014 9:51 PM, "Gier, Nicholas (ngier at uidaho.edu)" <ngier at uidaho.edu> wrote:

Hi Don and Others,

The debt tripled under Reagan, and his advisers were wise to convince him to raise taxes in 7 years of his 8-year term.  I posted all of the data here on the Vision.  See all of my columns on Reagan at http://www.NickGier.com/ReagamPage.htm.<http://www.nickgier.com/>  For debt for each president see http://www.NickGier.com/DebtGOPObamaTables.pdf.<http://www.nickgier.com/DebtGOPObamaTables.pdf>  As I wrote in a recent column, Reagan and Bush II borrowed money to wage one unnecessary cold war and two hot wars, and Obama borrowed money at near zero interest rates to save the economy and gave 8 million plus people health insurance.  By 2021, the two largest items on the national debt will be Iraq and Afghan wars and the loss of revenue due to the Great Recession.

Japan's debt is 200% of GDP, but they owe it all to themselves.  The problem with our debt is that the Chinese and other sovereign wealth funds (e.g., Norway and Saudi Arabia) own a great deal of it.

nfg
________________________________
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com <vision2020-bounces at moscow.com> on behalf of Paul Rumelhart <paul.rumelhart at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2014 7:18 PM
To: Ron Force
Cc: Moscow Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

Well, I'm not an economist.  I do think that $18 trillion is perhaps both feet across the ridiculous line, though.

There are a lot of things about how the system works that I find strange.  For example, I googled how much cash there is in circulation at the moment.  According to this link (http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12773.htm), there is roughly $1.29 trillion in circulation, with $1.25 trillion of that being in the form of Federal Reserve Notes.  So it's all just smoke and mirrors anyway.

Hopefully our currency will stay strong on the international stage, otherwise we will probably be having quite a different conversation.

And I know the idea is old-fashioned, but maybe we should be looking closer at how much bang we are getting for our buck instead of just adding some more to a fictitious number somewhere and hoping it will all sort itself out sometime.

Paul

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 10:33 AM, Ron Force <rforce2003 at yahoo.com<mailto:rforce2003 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
And this is a problem...because?
Debt for a sovereign government that issues its own currency and has the power to tax is different from an individual or a government that doesn't have its own currency (ie, Greece). Read here:

The Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget: Here’s Why | Roosevelt Institute<http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/federal-budget-not-household-budget-here-s-why>

The Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget: Here’s Why | Roosevelt Institute<http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/federal-budget-not-household-budget-here-s-why>
The Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget: Here’s Why L. Randall Wray takes the fear and loathing out of understanding federal budget deficits.

View on www.rooseveltinstitute.org<http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/federal-budget-not-household-budget-here-s-why>

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  It's the same thing my Econ 101 professor taught back in the last century.

Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA

On Monday, December 8, 2014 3:29 PM, Paul Rumelhart <paul.rumelhart at gmail.com<mailto:paul.rumelhart at gmail.com>> wrote:

I hadn't looked at http://usdebtclock.org<http://usdebtclock.org/> for a while, and just noticed that we passed the $18 trillion dollar mark.  I'm not sure exactly when we crossed it.

Perhaps we should be doing something about this.

Paul

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