How about that national debt though!?

[breakingcontact]

We are almost to $18 trillion. Get ready!

Average Federal Spending Per Household Nearly $30K

 

[Younggun]

I'm sure we can find a way to spend our way out of it.

 

[coachrick]

I'm sure we can find a way to spend our way out of it.

NO...NO...NO...We must BORROW our way out of it!!!

 

[Davetex]

There's still checks in the check book!!! We're good.

 

[rsayloriii]

Give me the extra $30k. I'm sure I can find a better use for it than the government can.

 

[ROGER4314]

People of Scottish ancestry like me are thrifty and capable in money matters. It brings my blood close to a boil when I see the A-Holes in Washington bankrupting our nation.

How do you stay solvent? It's easy!

My CC balance is $216 (bought a new oven).

I do not borrow nor lend money.

The Harley in the garage was purchased by putting my money in a CD and borrowing against that CD. Actual net balance is zero!

Everything here is paid for.

I could write a check today and pay off the tiny balance on my mortgage.

Student loan balance is and always has been ZERO!

If I can't afford something.....I do without it.

None of that is rocket science. What the Hell is wrong with the Knot Heads in Washington?

Flash

 

[breakingcontact]

It is easy. You are spending your money. They are spending your money.

 

[texas skeeter]

What the Hell is wrong with the Knot Heads in Washington?

Flash

They are giving old Buzzards like you SS $. How've ya been my favorite Old Timer?

 

[ROGER4314]

Hey Skeeter!

Yup, that's true but somehow paying into the SS fund for over 50 years seems to be overlooked. I'm a Baby Boomer and our huge group paid and paid while there were comparatively few people retiring. Now, when we are ready to retire, folks blame us for the fund being over burdened.

Blame the bastards who stole the money in the surplus years. I understand a lot of that money went to fund the Viet Nam war. Now THAT was a good investment!

Flash

 

[texas skeeter]

Hey Skeeter!

Yup, that's true but somehow paying into the SS fund for over 50 years seems to be overlooked. I'm a Baby Boomer and our huge group paid and paid while there were comparatively few people retiring. Now, when we are ready to retire, folks blame us for the fund being over burdened.

Blame the bastards who stole the money in the surplus years. I understand a lot of that money went to fund the Viet Nam war. Now THAT was a good investment!

Flash

LOL! Oh Flash Iam GLADLY paying heavily for you to get yer small check each month. Others not so much. They already spent what you paid in for all those years....

 

[Chirpy]

Yup, that's true but somehow paying into the SS fund for over 50 years seems to be overlooked. I'm a Baby Boomer and our huge group paid and paid while there were comparatively few people retiring. Now, when we are ready to retire, folks blame us for the fund being over burdened.

One problem there. Look at average salaries in 1970 of $6,186.24, and one problem is that a year's worth of SS taxes in 1970 is now being paid out in a month due to the brutal reality of inflation. So that means that many, many folks are pulling out every penny they paid in over a lifetime in the first five years of being on the receiving end, if not less.

 

[Vaquero]

One problem there. Look at average salaries in 1970 of $6,186.24, and one problem is that a year's worth of SS taxes in 1970 is now being paid out in a month due to the brutal reality of inflation. So that means that many, many folks are pulling out every penny they paid in over a lifetime in the first five years of being on the receiving end, if not less.

Find me a way out.
I'll walk away from 33+ years of "benefits" if I can quit "contributing" right now

 

[rsayloriii]

One problem there. Look at average salaries in 1970 of $6,186.24, and one problem is that a year's worth of SS taxes in 1970 is now being paid out in a month due to the brutal reality of inflation. So that means that many, many folks are pulling out every penny they paid in over a lifetime in the first five years of being on the receiving end, if not less.

If that money had been invested properly, and not dipped into, that could have helped make up some of the deficit, if not most of it. However, it was dipped into and frequently at that. Inflation. What caused the inflation? Mostly the government meddling with out money. Instead of not spending what they don't have, they just print more and borrow more which causes inflation to rise. Our nation is in debt, but these companies are "too big to fail". Well, obviously not, had the government not meddled. How many people have paid in and either not received any or not received what they put in (by death, for example)?

 

[ROGER4314]

Had the money Baby Boomers plugged into that SS system been invested properly, there would be plenty of money in the fund. What our government did was to take the funds and replace them with Treasury Bonds. It's a very risk free investment but it pays shxt as a dividend. I say "risk free" investment until our Dumb Heads in Washington DEFAULT on the Treasury Bonds!

I used to buy US Savings Bonds because I believed in America. When I woke up from that dream, I realized what a stupid investment I had made. The return on those bonds is PITIFUL and they even lag behind inflation! Treasury Bonds are not much better! The money in the SS fund was pissed away!

Sorry, folks of retirement age didn't create the problem with SS. Our Dick Heads in Washington did this!

Flash

 

[Mexican_Hippie]

So if I cut them a check for my $30k can I opt out of the inevitable financial collapse?

lol

 

[oldguy]

Sorry, folks of retirement age didn't create the problem with SS. Our Dick Heads in Washington did this!

Agree, my spouse and I have over 85 years combined work life, never received a dime in government benefits, paid in taxes until we retired. We have relatives between the ages of 30-45 who receive more benefits then we do yearly, Medicaid, food stamps, schools lunches, etc. The point I'm getting to is the welfare society we're building and it grows larger each year.

In the late 80's we begin to ship manufacturing jobs overseas mostly china, gave us cheap goods, lower paying jobs here and made huge profits for those at the top. The end results will be a rich/poor society, the grand utopia for liberals.

Only way out is stop corruption in DC and their corporate buddies, anyone know how.??

 

[majormadmax]

This really didn't make the news...

It's official: America is now No. 2

Hang on to your hats, America.

And throw away that big, fat styrofoam finger while you're about it.

There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it: We're no longer No. 1. Today, we're No. 2. Yes, it's official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.

It just happened - and almost nobody noticed.

The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in "real" terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion - compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.

As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.

To put the numbers slightly differently, China now accounts for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in real purchasing-power terms, compared with 16.3% for the U.S.

This latest economic earthquake follows the development last year when China surpassed the U.S. for the first time in terms of global trade.

I reported on this looming development over two years ago, but the moment came sooner than I or anyone else had predicted. China's recent decision to bring gross domestic product calculations in line with international standards has revealed activity that had previously gone uncounted.

These calculations are based on a well-established and widely used economic measure known as purchasing-power parity (or PPP), which measures the actual output as opposed to fluctuations in exchange rates. So a Starbucks venti Frappucino served in Beijing counts the same as a venti Frappucino served in Minneapolis, regardless of what happens to be going on among foreign-exchange traders.

PPP is the real way of comparing economies. It is one reported by the IMF and was, for example, the one used by McKinsey & Co. consultants back in the 1990s when they undertook a study of economic productivity on behalf of the British government.

Yes, when you look at mere international exchange rates, the U.S. economy remains bigger than that of China, allegedly by almost 70%. But such measures, although they are widely followed, are largely meaningless. Does the U.S. economy really shrink if the dollar falls 10% on international currency markets? Does the recent plunge in the yen mean the Japanese economy is vanishing before our eyes?

Back in 2012, when I first reported on these figures, the IMF tried to challenge the importance of PPP. I was not surprised. It is not in anyone's interest at the IMF that people in the Western world start focusing too much on the sheer extent of China's power. But the PPP data come from the IMF, not from me. And it is noteworthy that when the IMF's official World Economic Outlook compares countries by their share of world output, it does so using PPP.

Yes, all statistics are open to various quibbles. It is perfectly possible China's latest numbers overstate output - or understate them. That may also be true of U.S. GDP figures. But the IMF data are the best we have.

Make no mistake: This is a geopolitical earthquake with a high reading on the Richter scale. Throughout history, political and military power have always depended on economic power. Britain was the workshop of the world before she ruled the waves. And it was Britain's relative economic decline that preceded the collapse of her power. And it was a similar story with previous hegemonic powers such as France and Spain.

This will not change anything tomorrow or next week, but it will change almost everything in the longer term. We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. since at least 1945 and, in many ways, since the late 19th century. And we have lived for 200 years - since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 - in a world dominated by two reasonably democratic, constitutional countries in Great Britain and the U.S.A. For all their flaws, the two countries have been in the vanguard worldwide in terms of civil liberties, democratic processes and constitutional rights.

 

[TheDan]

I heard one guy explaining that the national debt was irrelevant because it is in US Dollars and the US dollar is a sovereign currency controlled by the government. It doesn't matter how much the actual debt is because the government creates the money it spends and increases taxation to control inflation. This person is a self described communist...

So there you have it folks. The government's money is fictional; don't worry about it. Nevermind the fact politicians use their fictional money to take the real fruits of your labor.