http://lordtwinkie.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] lordtwinkie.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] talkpolitics2010-04-11 07:18 pm
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Federal Debt: doom or non-issue

I caught CNN the other morning and they had a special on this film

I.O.U.S.A. The Movie

I.O.U.S.A. – the 30-Minute Version from IOUSA the Movie on Vimeo.



short version on youtube as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

I was wondering if anyone else had seen this film and what they thought. I'm not an economist I just know if this is how I spent money I'd be up shit creek. Then again I'm not a sovereign nation either. This was made two years ago, and it looks pretty damning, but is it manipulation of numbers and pretty charts and graphs? This was before a lot of shit went down and that big healthcare bill got passed... Starting at the 26 minute mark kinda sums up what the issues are going to be.

Although this was a good sign to me, Consumer debt falls by $11.5 billion in February

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. households paid down their debts in February for the 15th time in the past 17 months, the Federal Reserve reported... Outstanding consumer credit dropped by $11.5 billion, or a 5.6% annual rate, to $2.45 trillion in February following an upwardly revised $10.6 billion increase in January. Debts had declined for 12 straight months before January's increase and are down 5.2% from the peak in July 2008.

In February, revolving credit, such as credit cards, declined by $9.4 billion, or a 13.1% annual pace, to $858.1 billion. It's the third largest decline in revolving credit in the past 32 years. Read more on the Fed's website.

Non-revolving credit, such as auto loans, student loans and personal loans, fell by $2.1 billion, or a 1.6% annual rate, to $1.59 trillion in February.


although apparently its not all because we are actually saving monies and paying bills some of it is because agencies are just writing off bad debt as uncollectable

Outstanding debts can fall because consumers paid back more than they borrowed or because lenders wrote down the debt as uncollectable. Both factors have been important in the decline since the summer of 2008.

Like i said i'm not economist, i'd like to hear from people smarter then me in this area, right now it looks to me like this is untenable, we can't keep doing what we are doing now somethings got to change higher taxes, less benefits or a mix of both. Personally i could do away with the "benefits".

also is it just me or is Sarah Palin getting hotter

[identity profile] sgiffy.livejournal.com 2010-04-12 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
No its not. Millions of people every day make investments that produce a return. Its not just dumb luck that has resulted in a steadily growing economy.

You're confusing a lack of perfection with abject failure.

[identity profile] jerseycajun.livejournal.com 2010-04-12 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
Economies are not made up only of winners. One can make all the smartest and most informed decisions possible and still lose, because established knowledge isn't absolute.

The reason GDP grows is because, on balance, there are more successes than failures, but that discounts the often overlooked number of failures, but that could just as easily mean a success-to-failure ratio of 55% to 45% as it could be 95% to 5% and still qualify. Government must take money out of the economy in order for itself to 'invest', through taxation, inflation or in the future with borrowed money which will have to be taxed back at some future point.

In order to replicate success to pay off those future debts (if in keeping with the OP, it chooses route #3), it as a small subset of decision makers, must on balance, make more successful investments than failures that would ordinarily be constituted by the balance of successes and failures of hundreds of millions of actors. Do you see the problem this presents?