05-20-2005, 10:13 PM
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#16
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Farm Team Player
Join Date: Aug 2004
Exp: 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lurch@May 20 2005, 07:21 AM
How much debt is right for a country? I know of next to no businesses that operate debt free, and there are a lot of good reasons. Paying for infrastructure with operating funds is poor policy, IMO, so there will always be a need for debt. Also, the majority of Cdn debt is likely held by Canadians (wish I had a stat) and provides a valuable risk management tool for portfolios in that government of Canada bonds are probably one of the safest investments in the world (especially for a Canadian who spends Canadian dollars in Canada).
How about the US? Here is a great article with an excerpt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5051701238.html
Quote:
"All true," Sawhill, a budget official in the Clinton administration, concurred.
"To do nothing," Butler [Heritage Foundation, right wing group] added, "would lead to deficits of the scale we've never seen in this country or any major in industrialized country. We've seen them in Argentina. That's a chilling thought, but it would mean that."
Each of the three had a separate slide show, but the numbers and forecasts were interchangeable.
Walker put U.S. debt and obligations at $45 trillion in current dollars -- almost as much as the total net worth of all Americans, or $150,000 per person. Balancing the budget in 2040, he said, could require cutting total federal spending as much as 60 percent or raising taxes to 2 1/2 times today's levels.
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I think you stated the most important point. Most the debt is held by Canadians so all that debt servicing ends up in the pocket of Canadians anyway.
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