National Debt in the US

Saw a post in a thread, figured this was divergent enough to warrant a new thread.

So, here is the question:

Who the hell do we owe money to, and how the fuck did we spend so much.

Please no 'lol, republicans.  And you can't blame the war for ALL of it (okay 100 BILLION dollars is a bit extreme, but hey, we want the shiny bombs!) so... what did we spend all that money on?

Was it for the fatass who lives three houses down from me who has never had a job but somehow manages to scrounge up enough money to play WOW all day?

Was it to pour the shitty street that I have to drive down everyday to get to work that made of fail and shit?

Or was it to violate my civil liberties via the Patriot Act?

Maybe it was to house the bastards who won't stop smoking pot and 'getting clean' only to 'get high' the next week??!?!

Can someone please explain to me why the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is in debt?  We are the 'most powerful nation in the world' so, who had the economy to GIVE us money??

Or is this part of the international banking scheme that no one is supposed to know about?

well we had a surplus during clinton's era, so i think its safe to say "lol republicans"

Very true.

But what then are the Republicans spending all my damn money on?!?

Because its in governments self-intrest to spend money it hasnt asked for, when you do things like drop the gold standard this is the result

Blame a Democrat actually, FDR
but he actually spent the taxes on stuff we needed during the depression.
Massive Government spending=profit
Now GB is a fucktard who has no idea on how to spend money

Didn't the American government cause the Depression?  I do remember it did.

Oh, and I always love to point out how libertarians who voted for Bush (you know who you are) have raised their own taxes due to his spending. That's right, the dubiously justified and motivated and shittily executed wars have already eaten up your precious tax breaks. Fuck you.

astantia: they were used over a loooong period of time on, as you said yourself, military equipment, but also on foreign goods in general, your sony TV, your toyota, your french wine, your german steel, your oil, etc. etc. other than the oil the US is by large able to be self-sufficient, which is what made them a strong power to begin with.

A possible reason for the strong import could also be the strong want of foreigners for dollars, so they've been very willing to export to the US because of their own currency's instability and probably some other factors as well.

also, you owe your money to pretty much the rest of the world, mainly europe, russia, arabic oil countries, china and japan, i'd guess, but i don't know that much about where your money are  XD

>>6
Xel, the depression was caused by many other factors also
1. Consumer borrowing
2. Overproduction of Items
3. Laissez-faire policy's 

>>8
If there were laissez-faire policies to begin with, companies would have competed instead of overproduced and borrowing would have been more difficult so less people would borrow. Long story short the government messed with capitalism and generated a lop sided economy, almost as inefficient as a socialist economy!

>>8 Well, the American governemnt triggered it, I think. Thereby ending one of the most promising if materialistic cultural eras... Still, it was also a really unlucky combination of factors.

>>9 I do not believe that completely.

>>10

Anonymous: 4-3=1
Xel: I do not believe that completely.

GREAT MYTHS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: 

http://www.uaca.ac.cr/acta/1998nov/lreed.htm

I think FDR had good reason to spend all that he did, to get out of the hole that Hoover failed to believe was going on.

And Clinton was the first president since before the depression to balance the debt.

so yeah, 'lol republicans

>>2
"well we had a surplus during clinton's era, so i think its safe to say "lol republicans"

I don't really think it is that simple.  I think the surplus was created in part because we had republicans in congress, and a president who wanted to balance the budget.  The combination of the two led to the subsequent surplus I think, not just the fact that we had Clinton in the presidency at that time.

The surplus is all well and good, but if you are using it as an excuse to tax your population into the ground overall it doesn't do much good.

>>15
I'm sorry, what part of paying off your debt so the interest doesn't cripple you don't you understand?

>>16
What motivates you to ignore the fact that democraps enjoy using low amounts of debt as an excuse to increase taxation above and beyond that which is needed to pay off the debt?

>>1

Its an intentional banking scheme that everybody knows about. Inflation makes our real debt go down every year (goods+services we could obtain with our debt).

whiney liberals => getting paid more than you should => employers need more money => prices higher than they should be => us exports for the fail

inflation => weak dollar => us exports for the win

yes, it is a gross oversimplification of the macroeconomic system. so? I dont see a problem. I embraced my Classical Economist soul a long, time ago and I am happy with my huge ass national debt(a cute 8,595,219,202,453!). But thanks anyway asshole. Go play your stupid keynsian economics shit while I let this problem fix iteself.

>>18
The US is not an export nation my friend.  A weak dollar to pay off the debt is not a good solution, and screwing over your creditors is not a good way for you to get loans in the future. 

Inflation must be kept in check lest the economy shrivel up and leave us generating less money to pay for our artificially reduced debt.

>>9
You fucknugget, they produced because they wanted to sell their fucking wares, and the market was oversaturated, Production and Competition are not diametrically opposed, or even opposed concepts.

>>17
Oh, so you think the balanced budget under Clinton would have paid off our debt? Maybe in like 100 years, while the more and more money is wasted towards the interest. 

Paying off your loans early is fucking common sense, you pay less interest and lose less from paying it.  So raise taxes and pay the fucking debt, it makes absolute fucking sense.

Because they know the next guy elected is going to fuck things right back up again.

I think the debt is due to not giving illegal aliens licenses and letting fags marry.

blablabla

tax cuts for the rich/corporations + Iraq war ===> record debt!

We could just pretend the debt never existed and never pay the Chinese a penny. They'll probably forget about it.

National debt is a core part of economics today, in general business as well as in national economies. It's not money owed to pay bills- borrowed money is supposed to be used in such a fashion that it allows for investment and the creation of more money, so that the nation profits. National debt is not always a bad thing; the current U.S. debt is just potentially unhealthy.



The U.S. more than likely (though I haven't seen the exact breakdown) owes its debt to national/U.S. based banking institutions. It's better to owe money to national banks, because unlike international lenders you can tax their profits, lol.

Thus the U.S. probably owes most if not all of its debt to financial institutions within the U.S.- it's the same for most western economies.

forget the debt, the scariest thing atm is how much the value of the dollar is dropping in comparison to foreign currencies

Not necessarily. A weak dollar is good for exports- it means american goods cost less when sold abroad, so foreigners can buy more american goods for less of their money, which encourages spending. More sales equal more profits, more goods produced and so more jobs in export industries. And that is good for the balence of trade.

>>29
Assuming the free market is not interfered with by the government.

Hence "Not necessarily"

>>13


it more complicated than that.  there is no one group of people that gain be fully blamed for the National Debt

>>26 lol