[Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

Wed Dec 10 11:31:56 PST 2014

<My biggest complaint with Bush in this regard was that he was launching 
immensely expensive wars while simultaneously cutting taxes.>

That's my biggest complaint about Bush as well.  The Republican solution to everything is 'cut taxes' (followed by ban the teaching of science, ban abortion, ban gays, ban women, ban minorities).  Bush cut taxes in a booming economy, started two expensive wars, and then when the economy tanked the old saying of 'you don't raise taxes in a recession' was being repeated.  To boot, the Republicans still make ludicrous claims like 'corporate taxes should be cut' to spur hiring.  Obviously It doesn't work that way since many corporations are hoarding billions of dollars in cash and aren't using it to hire.  At best, they're just extinguishing that cash with stock buybacks.

From: sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:24:11 -0800
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

My biggest complaint with Bush in this regard was that he was launching immensely expensive wars while simultaneously cutting taxes. But my question for you remains the same: What economic theories address this issue? You and I can say 'Boy these are big numbers,' but I know I don't know anything about the applicable theories, and I suspect you don't either, or you would have mentioned them just now.

As for cutting 'fat,' there isn't much agreement on how to define the term. 'Fat' is spending on programs people don't agree with because of their political beliefs, not something we all know when we see it.

Sunil

Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:14:22 -0800
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!
From: paul.rumelhart at gmail.com
To: sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com

That's basically my question.  My common sense tells me that having debts larger than what we can even make in a year is a bad idea.  Weren't we all rabidly complaining about this under Bush II?  What if they start selling oil in euros?  What if the dollar takes a nosedive for some other reason?  Hell, a quick Google shows that there are 117,538,000 households in the US.  Why not spend another 1.17538 trillion and give us all a check for $10,000?  Or spend $11.7538 trillion and give us all $100,000?  Why not cut the fat in our budget just as a matter of principle?  

Paul

On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Sunil <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:

Paul,

What economic theories are used to analyze those questions? What are the competing viewpoints? On what basis should we decide whether we should sleep at night?

Sunil

Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 10:54:04 -0800
From: paul.rumelhart at gmail.com
To: ngier at uidaho.edu
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] yay! we passed $18 trillion!

Is there a number past which we should be worried when it comes to our national debt?  Estimates put the GDP for the US at $17.416 trillion (http://www.statista.com/statistics/263591/gross-domestic-product-gdp-of-the-united-states/).  Is it smart to have our national debt be larger than our gross domestic product?  Is there a line past which we shouldn't sleep so soundly at night?  The national debt has gone up $2 billion since I looked at it two days ago.  When do we hit the number beyond which it is dangerous to have that much debt as a nation?  Whatever the number is when the Republicans take control?

Paul

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 10:23 PM, Gier, Nicholas (ngier at uidaho.edu) <ngier at uidaho.edu> wrote:

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?

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

Preview by Yahoo

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.  For debt for each president see 
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> 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

The
 Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget: Here’s Why | Roosevelt Institute

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

Preview by Yahoo

  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> wrote:

I hadn't looked at 
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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