http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5injFfO8MlwJfFFF_n29IR630N94AD96IQUM84

That's $2,000,000,000,000. twelve ****ing zeroes with a 2 in front of it. If this bill passes, that's how much the government has spent in under 6 months. We thought a $600B a year thing was bad, the current government is on track to shatter all records yet again. The control of $1.5T of that has/will come under the current administration.

And guess what - this bill is loaded with earmarks and the Senate has not even put their mitts on it yet. i hope, for his sake, Obama vetoes it if it makes it that far. I guess once you pass back-to-back $700B+ bills, a cool $500B isn't so bad.

shoot, 2 trillion is but a drop in the bucket. the GAO report says that we owe 65 trillion now and you don't hear the news anchors telling us about that.

in terms of absolute dollars we owe more than ever in our history

in terms of a percent of our GDP our debt isn't so bad

in terms of debt, when is it ever good? honestly. i don't see on your chart there, the debt that adds up to 54 trillion dollars. compare that with our gdp.

here is my proposition:

We can improve things even more so, if we move more outlays off the budget, so that they do not show up on the graphs, and on the other hand, we mess with how we calculate our GDP, so that it shows even bigger number.

Hold on, folks. Does this mean Clinton was smarter than Obama?

probably

Clinton was a succesful governor of a state for 8 years before becoming Pres

Obama was a freshman Senator for not quite 2 years

this is where rep. cooper calls alan greenspan, cristopher cox and john snow out about the 54 trillion dollar debt. this is in a congressional hearing. you will be very surprised at how he shuts these guys up lol.

one of the most interesting videos ever lol.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hDJptpUsJU

The only problem is the post-war economy. We were the only ones doing major manufacturing so our GDP rapidly rose and our debts were paid. Now, we have no such advantage.

you're right. the funny thing about it is that before the wars we only had the federal reserve system for 3 years and they hadn't gotten their dirty little greedy meat hooks into us deep enough. but once the wars started, we had to borrow from them and it started going down hill from there.

andrew, did you watch the video that i posted the link to?

So, what is the lesson that we can learn from this video?

oh, because quiet was comparing our debt to the gdp. he was using the wrong figures or actually wasn't using all of the figures if you're going to get the big picture, you have to see compare the percentage of gdp to the 54 trillion dollars deficit

My media player is screwy, can you tell me the figures that add to that number? Does that include the debt of the public or something because to be honest, that number is higher than the annual GDP of the entire planet.

EDIT: ok, no, the GDP of the world is $55.5T. Still that's too high a number to be realistic to me.

andrew, i wish so bad that your video player wasn't messed up because rep. cooper actually brought this figure to the attention of alan greenspan the ex fed chairman, christoper cox the chairman for the security exchange commission, and john snow the former treasury secretary. they couldn't tell him why they haven't made sure that everyone in the congress, and in america for that matter, wasn't being made aware of this. and you're right!!!!! it is higher than the annual GDP of the world!!! that is what is scary about it. none of the above people could answer him, in fact they tripped over their own tongues when they tried. he put them in a box that even alan greenspan couldn't syllilliquate himself out of.

Sure bud,
http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat.htm

thanks guys. See, that makes total sense to me being the entire country. Granted there is some duplicated debt there (i.e. credit issued from one company to another who borrowed from a bank who borrowed from the fed who borrowed from, say China would result in the value being added at each step) but either way that's a scary thing.

OK, soooo...


Why does one literally wouldn't want to use generally accepted accounting practices?

"just because" or "whatever" is not an answer that brings you anywhere. Think of different situations. Stop when you slide across one that would satisfy the need not to use the generally accepted accounting practices.

Anyone?

Huh? lol could you please restate the question? Are you asking why we throw around the $10T number even though the nation's debt is nearly $55T?

My answer would be that that is the debt of the federal government. Technically, the reserve is not government so any money they borrowed to give loans does not go into the $10T I assume. Also, there are many states up to their eyealls in debt and deficits (*cough* california *cough*) as well as the large majority of the general public (either in mortgages and car loans and/or credit cards). Ultimately, the federal government is not responsible for the states or the public (well, until lately anyway - I still missed that memo) but the term "national debt" is a tad misleading.

Speaking as an accounting major, GAAP only applies to businesses to my knowledge - I was never told otherwise in any class. Although, the federal government likely uses them as well and is not in any violation if they are stating their own debt only.

Also, from that site above, this:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm

toward the bottom of the page gives a breakdown and the federal government is correct in giving their own debt figures. A large chunk of that is the private sector with personal and business debt.

Below, I will attempt to figure out what is the government debt only.

From Hodges:


Is the contingency items he is talking about are those of both, government and private entities?

117.1-52.9=64.2

I conclude, that the contingency, whoever they belong to, as estimated by Hodges should fall within a vicinity of $64.2 Trln.

From Hodges:


Clearly, Hodges is describing only a contingency items that are a government liabilities only. This follows from:

$52.9 Trln. - $42 Trln. = $10.9 Trln. (Government debt except Contingency Items)

$10.9 Trln. corresponds well to his stated figure for gov. debt except contingency items.

And the same works out again, in:

$10.9 + $64.2 (contingency) = $75.1 (stated above as sum above gov debt).

(Just to make it clear, that the contingency he is talking about is only that of the government.)

Therefore, the contingency items Hodges calculates are only those of US government. Total government debt then, (including contingency items), is $75.1 Trln.

This figure does not include any private debt.

Am I correct?

see, i found a lot of the numbers odd, but contingent liability is a possible (and more or less expected) future expense and by no means applies today. including those contingencies put the total at the $75.1T, there you are correct.

Right now, however, the total government debt is the $9.2T (obviously outdated) for the fed and the $2.2T for the states giving a total of $11.4T. Add that to the $41.5 (private sector less contingencies) and you have $52.9T