How Big Is Your...

[Flame Of Liberty]

...share of national debt?

Find out here:

US National Debt Clock

[Claeren]

IF one were American.... ?

I remember a couple years ago when they restarted the original debt clock... they had turned it off because everything was so rosy and the attitude in Washington so directed towards fiscal responsibility that interest had waned considerably in the 90's. Unfortunately for all Americans, and people around the world, there is now an administration in the US in place that believe “Reagen proved deficits don't matter...."


Claeren.

[Looger]

hey, debt financing keeps the masses down.

[InTheSlot]

I think some of you are a little misinformed. The USA's national debt is not money we owe to other countries or people, but rather, money that we owe to ourselves (our country).

[peter12]

I believe alot of it is owed to multilateral organizations like the World Bank as well.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally posted by InTheSlot@Dec 29 2004, 05:26 PM
I think some of you are a little misinformed. The USA's national debt is not money we owe to other countries or people, but rather, money that we owe to ourselves (our country).

I see Reagonomics 101 and Abba Lerner are still in the minds of many people.

Government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group on behalf of another and you try to obsucre this reality of burden by saying that "we owe it to ourselves."

OK.

Now can you explain who is "we" and who is "ourselves"? Are you saying those two are the same group? I hope not.

PS Who is "our country"? The government? All of people? Do trees and mountains count too?

Just asking.

[Looger]

in the case of canada a large chunk of our debt is owed to the bank of canada.

some is foreign, etc.

the united states has very large foreign debts, larger i believe than canada. or at least they were larger (proportionally) a decade ago.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally posted by InTheSlot@Dec 29 2004, 05:26 PM
I think some of you are a little misinformed. The USA's national debt is not money we owe to other countries or people, but rather, money that we owe to ourselves (our country).

One more suggestion:

How about you lend me a million dollars and we will call it a public debt. Then we (you and me together) will owe it to ourselves.

How does that sound?

[The Fonz]

edit

[InTheSlot]

Originally posted by Flame Of Liberty+Dec 29 2004, 12:13 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Flame Of Liberty @ Dec 29 2004, 12:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-InTheSlot@Dec 29 2004, 05:26 PM
I think some of you are a little misinformed. The USA's national debt is not money we owe to other countries or people, but rather, money that we owe to ourselves (our country).

I see Reagonomics 101 and Abba Lerner are still in the minds of many people.

Government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group on behalf of another and you try to obsucre this reality of burden by saying that "we owe it to ourselves."

OK.

Now can you explain who is "we" and who is "ourselves"? Are you saying those two are the same group? I hope not.

PS Who is "our country"? The government? All of people? Do trees and mountains count too?

Just asking. [/b][/quote]
@Flame Of Liberty:

I see Reagonomics 101 and Abba Lerner are still in the minds of many people.

Very clever. Did you write that one yourself?

Government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group on behalf of another and you try to obsucre this reality of burden by saying that "we owe it to ourselves."

It's the truth. If you want to argue plain fact, be my guest.

PS Who is "our country"? The government? All of people? Do trees and mountains count too?

Just asking.

What the ###### are you talking about? :unsure:


Also, here's an interesting tidbit of information, straight from the EXACT same website you got the clock from:



It helps to read buddy, especially if you're going to post something from a website without checking the rest of the information that's on there.


As you can see from the chart, each color represents a different part of our (the USA's) government. It is money that we owe to ourselves (the USA as a nation) because we have lent out money to other people/places/things. Again, if it were a debt we owe to other countries, then the pie-chart would have a key that lists the different countries we owe money to, rather than different government accounts. The reason we owe the money to ourselves and not other countries is because those other countries have already been paid back, and now we have to fund the moeny back to ourselves.


Think of it in simple terms as a bank. If a bank lends out money, the recipient has there money, and the bank is left with an empty pocket. The bank in this case would be the USA. We have lent out money to other people/things/places, and we are waiting to be reimbursed. If it is a country we lent money, they need to/will pay us back. When? Who the hell knows. If it's a government account we lent money to, such as the department of transportation for highway funding and things of that nature, then this is why we have to pay OURSELVES back. We lent money to one area of the government and now there's money missing elsewhere.

That's all.

Of course with all countries, you are going to have a debt of some amount that you owe to other countries and people, but that just is not at all what this "National Debt" clock pertains to whatsoever.


I await any sort of rebuttle you might have, Flame of Liberty.

[Agamemnon]

What the ###### are you talking about? :unsure:

Seems pretty obvious. You seem to be differentiating debt owed to American institutions from debt owed to foreign institutions. I'm not sure what the difference is, given that they are loans that have a payment schedule and interest, regardless of their country of origin. Whats the difference whether or not a chunk is owed to US banks or Japanese banks? Neither are going to give the US a break if they can't pay.

Also, you appear to be implying that somehow Americans owing Americans is an inherently better situation than Americans owing foreign countries. What's the difference? A Creditor is a creditor, regardless of the language they speak. I don't identify with a Canadian or American bank anymore than a Euro or Asian one. They all want your money, they just pay/take at different rates.

You're also a pretty rude poster, considering you started on this board advertising your league w/out permission. Based on your attitude in this thread, I certainly won't be checking it out.

[InTheSlot]

Originally posted by Agamemnon@Dec 31 2004, 10:55 AM

Seems pretty obvious. You seem to be differentiating debt owed to American institutions from debt owed to foreign institutions. I'm not sure what the difference is, given that they are loans that have a payment schedule and interest, regardless of their country of origin. Whats the difference whether or not a chunk is owed to US banks or Japanese banks? Neither are going to give the US a break if they can't pay.

Also, you appear to be implying that somehow Americans owing Americans is an inherently better situation than Americans owing foreign countries. What's the difference? A Creditor is a creditor, regardless of the language they speak. I don't identify with a Canadian or American bank anymore than a Euro or Asian one. They all want your money, they just pay/take at different rates.

You're also a pretty rude poster, considering you started on this board advertising your league w/out permission. Based on your attitude in this thread, I certainly won't be checking it out.

Rude poster? Hardly.

The fact that you would call me rude when you don't even know me is pretty sad on your part. I was just defending my arguments in this dicussion. Shame on you for judging me. The way you've come into this thread here shows that you aren't very mature, and, frankly, my website is really only welcomed to mature audiences -- so I'm not sure I would want you there anyway.


Oh and, by the by, about 'posting that topic w/o permission'...if you do some research and actually go into that thread, you'll see that one of the moderators here said it was alright for me to post since he did frequent the late Cyber-NHL.


Regardless,

I'm gonna breakdown what you said. The main thing you said was that I am implying that Americans owing money to themselves is somehow better than owing money to foriegn countries. I definitely do not mean that, and I think you misunderstood me. Clearly they aren't the same thing, however, there is a BIG difference between the two. Money owed to "ourselves" (the USA) isn't necessarily money we need to pay back right away. Whereas, if we owed money to another country like, Japan, for example, they would want us to pay them back within a signifigant amount of time, and, if not, I'm sure we'd be hearing from them quite often.


Do you understand now? I mean, if we owe money to our own nation, what are we gonna do, complain to ourselves? (essentially, that is in fact what's happening -- US citizens are crying over the debt)...but that's not nearly as bad as having people of other counries complaining that we owe them money.

[AC]

Originally posted by InTheSlot@Dec 31 2004, 04:19 PM
Rude poster? Hardly.

The fact that you would call me rude when you don't even know me is pretty sad on your part. I was just defending my arguments in this dicussion. Shame on you for judging me.

I think he was referring to the "What the ###### are you talking about?" comment.

[InTheSlot]

Originally posted by AnthonyCook+Dec 31 2004, 04:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AnthonyCook @ Dec 31 2004, 04:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-InTheSlot@Dec 31 2004, 04:19 PM
Rude poster? Hardly.

The fact that you would call me rude when you don't even know me is pretty sad on your part. I was just defending my arguments in this dicussion. Shame on you for judging me.

I think he was referring to the "What the ###### are you talking about?" comment. [/b][/quote]
Oh, maybe. When I said that I didn't mean to be rude at all, I just really had no idea what that original poster was talking about.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally posted by InTheSlot@Dec 31 2004, 05:38 PM
I await any sort of rebuttle you might have, Flame of Liberty.

If you wait for a reaction to your childish jackass comments, then go right ahead and wait.

[Agamemnon]

The fact that you would call me rude when you don't even know me is pretty sad on your part. I was just defending my arguments in this dicussion. Shame on you for judging me. The way you've come into this thread here shows that you aren't very mature, and, frankly, my website is really only welcomed to mature audiences -- so I'm not sure I would want you there anyway.

Yeah, you've clearly beaten me in this maturity contest.

Oh and, by the by, about 'posting that topic w/o permission'...if you do some research and actually go into that thread, you'll see that one of the moderators here said it was alright for me to post since he did frequent the late Cyber-NHL.

So I did some research, and you did just post it out of the blue. The first poster thought it was spam, except that he'd been there before. He was right, it is spam. The fact that you got permission after the fact doesn't mean you had it when you posted it. Though you probably don't (can't) see the difference, fair enough.