The Congressional Budget Office has released its latest report and it contains this rather distressing fact: the federal government is now borrowing 46 cents of every dollar spent in fiscal year 2013. I have long been a critic of the fiscal policies of both parties, but it is astonishing that the American people have not thrown out the whole lot of these people — Democratic and Republican. We look like an utter ship of fools as politicians allow the country to drift toward an unprecedented financial collapse. In the meantime, the Administration is borrowing this money to simply give Israel a $100 million building complex and pour billions into corrupted governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. China of course continues to hold much of our debt and is going on a buying spree in the U.S.
The government chalked up a $172 billion deficit in November alone — part of a $300 billion deficit for the first two months of the fiscal year. While both sides talk about the need to reduce spending, they have been spending like drunken sailors for years. For those of us who are skeptical about the use of tax increases in this economy, it is unnerving to think of giving more money to these same players. We need new revenue because of their horrible record over the last eight years. We must need however a third party to break the monopoly of power in this country — a monopoly that has left the entire country captive to these self-perpetuating parties.
It is clear that neither party wants to make hard choices and continue to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars to curry favor with different groups as with the $100 million gift of a building. There is also no serious accountability for the waste of billions under Bush and Obama as “stimulus” funds. I agree with the need to raise taxes but I have little faith in the Obama Administration or Congress in using such money responsibly. You do not get to a point of borrowing virtually half of every dollar spent without a complete lack of leadership and responsibility. Even if this figure falls, the point is that Congress still makes hundred million dollar gifts to wealth countries without a sound of objection or concern. Yes, all countries borrow money but we have a massive debt and continues to grow — an politicians who pledge to be more responsible in the future. The need for revenue is likely to change but not the need for responsibility in Washington.
Source: Washington Times
David Blauw,
Love ya’ but the astrophysicist is a con man. Why, Because we are not going anywhare. Moving is not physically possible. The conditions of the journey preclude that. The conditions on the other planets prevent establishment of colonies. And hoping for such solutions provide only false hopes, not the possible ones achieveable here on Earth.
If we can not solve our problems under these paradisical conditions, then we won’t on Mars or Venus either.
The home of the future that he claims that NASA projects gave us impetus to, is not what really has happened. It is instead the need for reduction of energy consumption that has produced a skyskraper in Africa which uses 10 percent of a normal resort and conference hotel. How? Using natural models. The home of the future is also a product of microelectronics and computer science, neither of which were employed or stimulated by the NASA projects to any degree. They were essential but not developed through NASA demand or programs. The whole of the on-board computer power on an Apollo flight is less than in your cellphone divided by 100.
I could go on. I too like dreams, but I also realize that we must solve our problems here and not hope for a second chance elsewhere.
DonS,
Politicians must bow to the wealthy corporate powers that be with whom they rub elbows and who help finance their campaigns. The corporations need more tax breaks while most of society finds itself with less and less. Social programs for the poor, middle class, elderly, and disabled be damned. The rich need to get richer. After all, they’re the makers not the takers and moochers like the rest of us.
bettykath, you haven’t heard anyone of note confessing to financing all these wars on credit, have you? Or calling for future military adventures to actually be paid for — even as a way of injecting a degree of pain and reality that might cause more folks to pay attention to our culture of aggression?
There was one important thing previously which caught my eye.
That the WW2 debt was never repayed. Due to the escape hatch of the later expansion of the economy. So maybe our expansion will get us through this time, but we see none coming now.
The only problem, is how much freedom will we still have in relation to our loaners. I’m hoping for no defecion by the money people. Pumping money into the economy via the MIC, and the other “biggies” is how we’re keeping up some comsumer demand, it is said. But are they as large employers as they are drainers of the tax budget. Beats me.
We are here facing problems for which some promise soluions.
But the other problems: evangelicism, justice, political control, etc are areas that I have not heard any solutions.
Only revolution or passive resistance are mentioned. Not too sure that even passive resistence would work , because even if It might get rid of our “British”, but it would then leave the problem in our incompetent and corrupt hands, as it did in India.
I wonder why Elaine Magliaro spent all that time and research on the post just below when to some there is only the DEFICIT, and that it’s such a big problem that it must be “fixed” even at the cost of disadvantaging over 90% of the citizenry, as a very conservative guess.
Further , that we would trust the same mindset, players, and institutional structures to guide us to a sane result when it was those (the acolytes of Peterson, Rubin, etc.) they/it that got us here. Few in power seem capable of learning, and/or are so beholden to this institutional robbery. It would take a fool to swallow Obama’s callow assertion that everyone needs to participate in the shearing when all the evidence points to the extraction of every dollar not nailed down to the benefit of the super wealthy — including insulating them from institutional larceny, gambling, greed and stupidity.
It’s harder all the time to deny we live in a radically post-democratic society.
This is a 3.5 minute video of my earlier link. There is a 40 second addition to the ending also.
50% goes to the military. Cut the part that goes to the CIA and the drones and the mercenaries and …… Divert more military money to the care of the vets. Better yet, use the military money to improve the VA system and put us all in it.
Paul Krugman does argue well. I have not decided if he is a used-car salesman or a con-man, or just a good talker.
Remember, one of our elite GB-ers said that economics is not a science, just theses that receive “Tribute to Alfred Nobel” prizes, not a real one.
Its nature leads tó non-falsifiable theories. And remind of gnosticism, where
every belief was equally valid and accepted. In a market for potty ideas, which agnosticism catered to, every IPO is fine, for a while.
The only thing true is that one percent can play the system to their advantage.
And yet, Paul Krugman says, “who cares about the debt, it doesn’t really mean anything anyway! We need to spend more money, more stimulus. Dont worry about it, we owe it ourselves.”
There is definitely a disconnect here.
Even if we can print our way out of debt, it is naive to think that will not cause ramifications exactly on par with defaulting.
I have and do predict, $18T is the physical limit on our national debt, then everything will begin to unravel, fall apart and there will be no more money or credit available.
Balanced budgets sound good. But in this era, we have seen the hew and cry being mostly about balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class. As long as the mode of “balancing” is driven by class warfare, in which the super rich make out like bandits while the rest suffer, we do not end up with a fair result.
It’s all about diverting more money to the ultra wealthy.
This is Neil Degrasse Tyson on congress. There is a longer clip which I will continue searching for. PS. He does note the large # of lawyers in Congress. :), …yes the last sentence does make me smile, (with a slight cynical twist to my lip)
@Darren: And of course our fall cannot be that steep. You are screaming about nightmare outcomes that are structurally impossible with USA debt.
“Over the past few years, our dependence on China as a lender has declined in both absolute terms and in relative terms. For all those who say the U.S. doesn’t make anything the world wants, look no further than the Treasury’s monthly statement of the public debt, which can be seen here (PDF). We manufacture government debt. And the world buys it. In the recently concluded fiscal year, the deficit was about $1.1 trillion. Between September 2011 and September 2012, the grand total of marketable debt held by foreigners rose from $4.9 trillion to $5.455 trillion, or about $555 billion.
So, yes, the amount of debt owned by foreigners has risen in the past year. But the portion of the debt owned by foreigners has stayed about the same—at about 51 percent—and the portion owned by China has fallen sharply. China’s total holdings of U.S. debt are about where they were in the middle of 2010, when the volume of total U.S. debt was much smaller.
So, the more accurate anti-spending, anti-borrowing rhetorical trope should be: “We’re borrowing from ourselves to fund the government, plus more than we used to from Japan and somewhat less than we used to from China.” But I doubt that tests well with focus groups.” Daily Beast
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/06/why-china-may-no-longer-be-america-s-no-1-debt-buyer.html Japan’s holdings are rising as China changes its policies.
http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2011-7?op=1 Business insider says China owns 8 percent. I think japan might have just passed China in ownership of US debt but they are close.
“so the worst that could happen would be a fall in the dollar, which wouldn’t be a terrible thing and might actually help the economy.”
Just as long as the currency fall is not like it happened in the Weimar Republic, France, Austria, Poland, Soviet Union, Hungary, Greece, Taiwan, China, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Poland, Brazil, Yugoslavia, Azerbaijan, Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Bulgaria and Zimbabwe.
“Although it may seem as though our debt to these countries renders us a puppet on strings, Bosworth says this fear is overblown. The U.S. market is very important to China’s economy, so China would be loathe to do anything that might exacerbate tensions or disrupt trade between the two countries. And the same can be said for Japan. China owns $1.15 trillion of U.S. government debt — more than any other country — but U.S. taxpayers actually owe less money to China compared to recent years. China holds 10% of U.S. Treasuries, down from 12% two years ago.” CNBC
Mike S.,
You are right about the Washington Times.
If anyone could find humor, albeit dark, in this it’s Albert Brooks. He wrote a funny novel titles, 2030. It also confronts our aging population and the “youngs” having to pay for the “olds”. Albert Brooks is quite liberal but all SANE people see this as insane. And, no we don’t owe the debt to ourselves, we owe it to China.
Anything written in the Washington Times is suspect. They are a newspaper version of FOX News, or a Washington version of Murdoch’s Y Post. They were founded and are owed by Sun Young Moon’s Unification Church, which has long played a role in far right wing politics.