$15 Trillion in 5 Days

All taxation plans are nonsense. The mess we are in won't be changed by trying to collect more taxes, different taxes, taxes on food, taxes on whatever. Taxes mean taking from one part of society and handing it over to another. Nothing more, Nothing less. It doesn't matter who is on either end because it doesn't do anything to create new wealth in this country.

Government isn't about solving problems, it's about creating dependence and taxation is the nasty tool that lets them do it.

Cain is already toast, he isn't going to be elected. But it really doesn't matter who is elected because they can't fix what's wrong. There is a delusional refusal to admit what is wrong with the economy and instead find more complicated ways to continue down the same road. A road that leads to the place called not good. Changing tax collection mechanisms only gets us there a little faster.

 

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Taxes should only be raised to pay for what we need to spend. That is the key. Its the spending. There is NEVER enough money to match the limitless spending of many politicians, so it never really matter how you raise money, it will never be enough until its 100% of the US economy, and even then they will borrow more.

While I applaud Cain's goal of having every citizen actually pay taxes, until spending is curtailed it will never matter.

Chris

 

In reality, any Cuban citizen is financially better off than any American.

Thats because Cubans live within their means. Living within your means won't happen in America until the printing presses are turned off. Viewing your country from Canada, I see nothing ever changes. The can keeps getting kicked down the road. I've heard Ben Bernanke has over 100 advisors and nothing still gets accomplished. You can bet, in Cuba every dollar is accounted for and a guy like Bernake would be cleaning toilets if he performed in Cuba the way he does in the U.S. Yet he is still in charge. Does no one have the stones to fire this guy?
So how much is to much? 25 trillion? 50 trillion? 100 trillion?

 

15 Trillion is a meaningless number to many people so they have no comprehension how much $15 Trillion really is.

Think of $15 Trillion as 15 Thousand Billion dollars. Or 15 Million Million dollars. Fifteen Million dollars is a lot of money. Fifteen Million Million dollars is a HUGE amount of money.

With a current US population of 311,800,000 people (that is 311.8 million) that means that the share of the federal debt for each and every citizen of the US is $48,107.76. The share of the federal debt for a young couple is $96,215.52. The share of the federal debt for a family of four is $192,431.05.

The population of the earth recently reached 7 billion. If every person on the planet chipped in $2,142.86 the US could pay off their debt. But we all know that ain't gonna happen.

The federal debt is increasing at an alarming rate. For FY (that's Fiscal Year in case you don't know) 2011 the US federal government had revenues of $2.17 Trillion and expenditures of $3.82 Trillion leaving a deficit of $1.65 Trillion (or another $5,291.85 for every US citizen). So, for every $1 that the US brought in it spent $1.76. Another way to look at it, the US federal government borrowed 43.2% of every dollar it spent in FY 2011.

Does anyone really believe the US will ever pay off its debt? I certainly do not think so.

 

Your supposition is laughable on its face, no need to go further in my eyes. Cuba>US, almost every non-baised index begs to disagree.

Your anti-American attitude is well known here. Its really easy for Canada to be doing better when they only spend the money to defend 5% of their country, and basically rely on US welfare to pay to defend your own country. That, and having no people but lots of land to exploit SHOULD make for more balanced budgets in my eyes, with today's higher commodity prices. I see all of your major corporations are just doing swimmingly lately.

Edit: Sorry Rush, I guess I got defensive. Its just every time you belittle the US saying we are much worst than a two-bit, banana communist dictatorship it makes me mad. Yes, maybe the poor in Cuba are better than our poor, but they have no choice but being poor, since the entire economy is dysfunctional and creates little value.

I like Canada personally, and with Britain consider you one of our best allies.

 

Defend our country from what? You can't be serious.

 

I was referring to defense of our shared continent, and how the US paid for almost all of it since 1946 on. I have already apologized to you in my edit, however.

 

LOL. Have you looked at the real estate market in Toronto or debt levels being carried by people vs income. If you guys are looking, you are not learning anything.

I do agree with you however on Cuba.

 

I've seen people refer to charts like the one below to seriously argue that we have no debt crisis as compared to the total wealth of the United States. They sincerely believe that if we simply monetize the debt, the debt will simply go away by devaluing the assets of people who own assets...aka "The Rich". Additional funds can then be spent on the poor and disadvantaged, thus realizing the Progressive Utopia...all monitored and modulated by the FED, of course.

In Billions

 

I read not long ago that the true debt of the US if placed per citizen would be just over 40K per person. Thats not really much money when put that way. It seems unfathomable that the government can't come up with 40K per citizen to be debt free. If I only had to pay that much in taxes per year I'd be one happy guy!
Guy

 

Cuba just very recently, like in a couple of weeks ago, started allowing private property and businesses. There's not much comparison.

I wrote a response in regards to politicians' tax plans and the political bend this thread is taking, but deleted it. (all proposed tax plans are redistributionist in one direction or another, anyone who says otherwise is lying)

The debt and deficits need to be controlled, definitely, but doing so at the wrong time in the wrong way will cause many more problems and will simply worsen the current situation. The reality of the situation is not as simple as cutting whatever agency or program you think would affect you the least (and just might affect that neighbor you don't like for XYZ reason), or which one sounds better to the audience. The world is a place of big numbers. GDP is a very big number, the deficit is a very big number for some very clear reasons that could be corrected if there was enough political and reasonable will.

It wasn't that long ago that we had a budget surplus...

 

Thanks for a balanced, reasoned post sir.

I too believe all countries budget problems can be solved if political will is applied. I do feel sorry for some European nations going through severe pain now due to their past politicians. It really is unfortunate that current politicians always take the blame for past failures.

If I had one wish to make I would wish every country had an independent Accounting agency so the politicians could not lie to the populace about the real economic numbers. I believe the truth would cure many of these ills.

 

Unfortunately, it's clear what would happen. Look at the CBO here, it's non-partisan and issues budgetary accounting measurements of proposed bills. Does it work here? No, politicians who oppose a certain bill simply dismiss any positive report on it from the CBO and dismiss any negative report on their preferred bills. There have even been calls to get rid of the CBO because of a positive analysis of an opposed bill.

 

I was thinking more making the GAO outside politicians control, responsible only to an appointed agency or the like. I know its a pipe dream, but it seems when it all boils down its politicians simply lying about the numbers to get bills passed. Its the same around the world.

 

I only have a mortgage and one car still getting paid off currently. I call these necessity debts rather than just normal debt (credit card debt from going out to eat and buying crap we don't necessarily need to survive on, eg. iPad or some fancy smartphone, etc). I do have enough cash to pay almost all of my remaining mortgage and car note though if I really wanted to drain a chunk of my retirement. I'm one of those people who was approved for a 400k home but opted for the 150k home because well, I didn't need a 400k home I send 2/3's of my monthly income to a mortgage payment each month. Politicians like most American's, think short term, not long term. I want to retire early to enjoy life, so I can live simple now but still live comfortable. My motto now is, if I want something, I save up for it. I don't believe in the buy it now, pay later because I really don't like the idea of perhaps a $100 item that turns out to cost me $200 or more after interests rates from the credit agency that lended me the temporary funds on some plastic card.

 

Something to consider is that he is just doing what he's supposed to do. While his motives may not be clear, it is clear that if one were in a class war that the rich would do exactly what Fed policy is in line with. Also, Federal Reserve board members are appointed by the President, so only he can fire them. It's a pretty convenient situation when you don't have to worry about pesky things like constituent votes for your job security.

Another way to put this in perspective is that 1 million seconds is roughly 11.5 days, but 1 trillion seconds is 31,710 years.

 

Scary indeed!

 

If you spent $1/day, then it would take you 41 billion years to do it. This amount of time is ~3X the age of the entire Universe. If you had started the operation right after the Big Bang, you would only be 1/3 done with it. By the time you finished, the Sun would have long since burned out and the Solar System gone.

 

Or, to put it into a more non-dramatic perspective, $15 trillion is only slightly more than the $14.5 trillion GDP of the USA in 2010.

Sorry to be anti-climatic.

 

And UK has 9 trillion in debt or 400% of their debt, it goes to show much US debt can go to as long as we can find suckers err buyers for it. I am conservative but even i am willing to admit worst thing we can do it is panic and slash everything and only worsen our debt/economic crisis.