The Global Ticking Time Bomb: Government Debt

"The government needs to increase spending and put people to work" (from comments above) ... ?!?  Seriously?!?!  Everyone I know who 'can't find a job' is on unemployment, as soon as their unemployment runs out ... voila! ... they CAN find a job!  I know the situation is worse in some states and I don't want to belittle the problems there. My point is simply, most people will not get off their butt and take care of themselves if someone else is willing to do it for them.

You can't deficit spend your way to prosperity. I wish the administration would realize this. During the election, all the promises sounded great but the question was asked "how will we pay for it?" O's glib answer was to reverse Bush's policies. What spending policy has he reversed? We remain at war. Government meddles in commerce more than ever. Entitlements expand. It is all smoke and mirrors. 

Hey!  This is good stuff!  Complacent Americans are getting a little po'd!  Yeah, baby!

I was 19 years old. Knew it all. One day, I made the mistake of asking my mother, who had her foot crushed by a machine that stamped out airplane parts during WWII (no safety guards, go figure) why she didn't just sue the government for negligence and make a million bucks?  My bad.  She turned to me, jabbed me in the chest with her finger, and in the only moment I remember seeing her truly angry shouted at me:  "WE WERE AT WAR!"   I can't think of that moment without getting a little choked up  That was all that was ever said, but it spoke volumes.  Faced with a crisis, that generation united in an unparalleled way and went to war against a common enemy.  They put aside their differences, religious, political, racial and defended one another's freedom.  You and I need to do the same thing.  I'm no longer a Republican or a Democrat.  I'm an American who understands there is a real threat to our way of life and it's alive and well in the halls of Congress and in the White House itself.  No blame going forward, just the realization we must act NOW. 

To my fellow posters:  #51 Susan, you offer solutions!  You go girl!  I'm listening

Tony #63, You sir, are correct.    Suddendeath #81  I feel your fire, you need to run again.  Now.

WE ARE AT WAR!  Remove the incumbents, replace them with vetted candidates who will listen to the will of the people.  Start now identifying the new leaders of our country.  Find better ways to communicate with our representatives than the lame "letter to your senator" that never gets read by the senator.  How about our own electronic polling place where instead of waiting for the Zagby folks or other professional and biased polling services to ask us we can generate and self-publish our dissatisfaction? 

This is good stuff.

I wonder what would happen if we replaced some of our politicians with businessmen who have actual experience at running a company for profit?

Spencer,

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it doesn't appear that the authors' data matches reality. For example, commonly discussed figures suggest that the federal government of the US owes about $14 Trillion, and has a GDP of about $50 trillion, leading to debt equivalent to 28% of GDP. the authors suggest this figure is closer to 92%. I suspect they may have an ulterior motive in their research, and that they may be going beyond commonly acepted definitions of government debt.

I've seen this type of "research" before from investigators who have a secondary agenda, like promoting gold sales.

Dan

Dan...  Where are your numbers coming from? Here is the public data from the World Bank.  US GDP is at $14.2T for 2008...  This is a Google link. 

If you don't like that one, there is always the US Gov't figures...  On 2/26/10 there released this:

Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of goods and services -- increased 6.3 percent, or $219.6 billion, in the fourth quarter to a level of $14,461.7 billion. In the third quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 2.6 percent, or $90.9 billion.

I am with t he poster that only left a moniker "suddendeath"...this problem is older than a lot of us and it will take that long to fix it. If there is anyone left that has learned history. We allowed our manufacturing to leave the country. It was only a matter of time until we arrived here.

"I am tired of working to support people that feel they are entitled to being taken care of!"

Here we go again.

Here's mine:

I'm tired of hearing the opinions of the ignorant.

I wonder; Are you tired of working to support the tax benefits of billionaires who pay about a 2/3rd's less in income taxes in relation to their income then you do?

Are you tired of working to support your government, federal, state, & local, shoveling billions upon billions of your tax dollars in welfare to corporations who are shipping the jobs of your clients overseas?

Are you tired of your neighbors children being killed so you can put gas in your car for a third of the cost that the rest of the industrialized world pays?

Are you tired of tripping over the homeless and downtrodden in the wealthiest most powerful nation ever to exist because your government insists on spending 2/3rd's of the tax money you send them each year on weapons development, military equipment, and personal?

Feel any safer?

It never ceases to amaze me how the otherwise literate cannot see the forest for the trees when it comes to economics.

The time for being tired is long since passed. If you had been tired back in 2000 when you voted for 8 years of irresponsibility, TWICE, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

But instead of accepting responsibility for your actions and placing the blame on the institutions enslaving all of us, you instead choose to turn to the weakest among us and continue to beat them in the hope they will just die and go away.

Nice Christen values there. Hope you made a tidy sum during the bubble because you're about to learn what the real value of it is.

Keep voting against yourself and then bitching about it. Makes for great blog comments . . .

Carl S

Whoa even more nonsense:

"PS;  I ran for US Congress in 1996 on all these issues....where the hell were YOU then????"

Listening to people who actually know what they're talking about?

Carl S

Excellent Comments by All, But I'd like to suggest that everyone sees the big picture, and suggest how to fix it, based off that the "big picture. But what everyone is apparently missing is the smaller picture - "Real Estate is Local". I may have missed a couple comments, but I only remember reading two that covered the subject from a local perspective, and they were generalizations. Yes it is our government, our politicians that are failing "We The People", but it is "We The People" the Realtors, Brokers, Agents, Mortgage Brokers & Advisors, that are missing the point. "Quit encouraging buyers to over spend!!!!' "Quit suggesting buyers should buy as much house as they can get" "Quit offering 100% financing". "Quit, utilizing government financed 100% loans!!!!". Not doing so, only perpetuates the current scenario! And based off of what we read here, in the news and on radio and TV, the current system is failing, leading to higher debt both by the government and personally. Consequently we don't improve the over all scenario. It only adds fire to the already burning house of cards. How about we try counselling buyers to improve their credit scores. How about showing them the benefits of utilizing a a book keeping system, of keeping a budget. How about taking a look at their debt to income ratio and suggesting they buy "Well Within Their Means" Which means they purchase a home 20% or better, below the current market value for the area, with fewer amenities that they can still enjoy. Suggest to them based off the current economic scenario it would be wise to consider spending less, and saving more, and not having huge expectations would be smarter, wiser, and would likely be far more beneficial in the long run. Stop! The Free For All, Try to ,not only be a good Realtor, but to be "their pseudo parent and give them the advice that will benefit them in this precarious position we are in economically.

Martin:

Nice comment. That's what we used to do 25 years ago when you needed 20% down to purchase a home. Problem is I don't get paid to be a credit counselor. Many of the people I counseled at that time rewarded me for my efforts by purchasing their home through another agent when the time came. So much for "the more you give the more you receive" philosophy.

In closing I have 7 words for you:

"The Fish Stinks From The Head Down."

I think I'll make that my campaign slogan if I ever run for office . . .

Carl S

Martin:

Nice comment. That's what we used to do 25 years ago when you needed 20% down to purchase a home. Problem is I don't get paid to be a credit counselor. Many of the people I counseled at that time rewarded me for my efforts by purchasing their home through another agent when the time came. So much for "the more you give the more you receive" philosophy.

In closing I have 7 words for you:

"The Fish Stinks From The Head Down."

I think I'll make that my campaign slogan if I ever run for office . . .

Carl S

I've been to Portugal and I loved it, and they seem to be the lowest as far as debt by 2040.

Maybe I should move there!!!

Australia is another area of the world that hasn't seen much effect from the global melt down. Lessons to be learned perhaps . . .