Confused :confused:

J

jeffer

New member
For years I’ve heard the US was in debt right up to it’s tarnished a$$. Now it’s .no debt, look at all this extra loot Over the last yeaar or so I hear politicians arguing on how we should use the surplus cash.
What gets me is they say we should use it to pay the debt. Is that the debt we don’t have?
Can someone enlighten this confused redneck?
 
You've been duped. The "surplus" is imaginary. The National Debt remains.

Asking the difficult questions, like, who do we owe this money to? How is it secured? Will only get you in trouble. Investigate this issue no further and go back to your business, and keep paying your taxes, of course.
 
You ignore the debt to make it look like there is a surplus.You then spend the surplus to please all the little sheeple out there so you can get reelected.Make scense?

------------------
beemerb
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men
every day who don't know anything and can't read.
-Mark Twain
 
The debt and the deficit / surplus are two different concepts.

The debt is what we, as a country, owe to everyone that holds federal securities ... Treasury bills, bonds, notes, etc. This is analygous to you owing money on your home mortgage. Let's say you owe $100K.

The deficit / surplus is how much 'profit' or loss you have every year. If you have a job paying $40K (and assume no related expenses), then your surplus would be $40K. On the other hand, if you ran your own business, and you lost $20K this year, then that would be your 'deficit'. [we're ignoring personal expenses for this example ...]

If you have a 'surplus', then you have cash available for additional spending, paying off debt, etc. If you have a 'deficit', then you'll be adding to your debt, assuming you don't have cash reserves / savings to draw down.

Obviously, these are simple examples, but I hope they help. The media usually does a great job of confusing this issue.

Regards from AZ
 
Further, its impossible to clear off the debt. As Jeff noted, Treasury bonds, notes, etc. If all these were paid off today, we'd be in debt again tmo when 10,000 Grandmas buys 10,000 little Billys a Treasury bond for their 6th birthday.

A vast amount of the "debt" is money we owe ourselves and is only debt on paper, not "real" money.



------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
Jeff describes it very well. I visualize it that USA has barrowed money and spent more then what was budgeted in the past. Now we still owe money but we are spending less then what is budgeted. Recently we did buy back some of our debt.

Q) How did we spend less?
A) Clinton sacrificed our military (less spending).

Q) How did we reduce our debt without increasing our spending?

A) Feds take our land. http://www.ashevilletribune.com/hage1.htm

Shok
 
The federal government and the states also routinely use accounting methods that would land a private company in very hot water for fraud. The surplus is largely accounting sleight of hand.

Oh, DC, what about the radical notion of paying off the debt and not selling Treasury securities?

------------------
Byron Quick
 
Yup, the "surplus", which may or may not actually transpire, is only a fiscal suplus, all or a portion of which COULD be used to pay down the principal and interest on the MASSIVE still-outstanding national debt, but probably will not, if I know politicians. So on we'll go, spending billions upon billions just on INTEREST, which gets us absolutely nothing. It's like my poor bankruptcy clients who are hooked on bingo, drinking, drugs, or gambling. They know what's best, but refuse to take the tough actions to STOP. So extraordinary amounts of money are flushed down the toilet. You wonder why income taxes are so high....
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Oh, DC, what about the radical notion of paying off the debt and not
selling Treasury securities?[/quote]

My God, man! Are you sane??!! Then the politicos would have to be blatantly honest and admit we need much higher taxes to support the socialist monkey on our backs (and their jobs).

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top