But wait… Aren’t we too big to fail?
Several countries around the world are facing [national bankruptcy], the US among them, and one or several such defaults would make the corporate bankruptcies of 2008 look like fallen grass blades before falling redwoods.
In the case of the US, national debt held by corporations, foreign governments, individual investors, and institutions such as pension funds grew just last year from 41% of GDP to 53%. That led the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States to issue a warning last week that the US must rein in its deficit.
[…]
I think everybody agrees that the US needs to cut its deficit, but it takes only a glance at the federal budget to see that doing so is politically out of the question. Consider that the five biggest gobblers of the US budget are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Defense, and interest on the debt.
[…]
Quietly, my circle of investors and geopolitical thinkers are wondering if a national bankruptcy is just what America needs to finally get corporate bloodsuckers off the taxpayer aorta. Given the political impossibility of reducing costs, will Democrats actually try raising taxes to retain US solvency? Imagine how that would go over as the bankers who caused the latest mess announce their record bonuses courtesy of taxpayer funds. The explosions to come may be the only way through the lobbyist choke-hold on Washington. Pick your poison: bankruptcy or bellicosity.
On Dec 15, 2006, the St Louis Treasury announced the USA was bankrupt. Then the real spending began…
Link here
What about devaluation of the currency? This is another, more palatable, way of partially erasing our debt to foreign interests.
Goldman announced record profits today. Ohhh the irony. God bless Capitalism, Gold bless America. The corruption in this country makes Russia look straight. Isn’t it sad when an empire dies? I hope your kids are gonna enjoy living in cardboard boxes.
Yeah, sure. Is this another Republican idea?
The “let Lehman Brothers die” idea worked out real well.
As soon as the dollar is no longer in the lucky position of being the world’s sole reserve currency, it won’t be a matter of “letting” the US default on its massive debt or inflating the dollar to nothing. Even with the currently huge national debt, a debt which will grow again this year at least as much as it did last year, if interest rates need to eventually be raised in order to continue to attract foreign (suckers) into buying treasuries to finance our deficits, just the interest payments on the debt will rise to the point where it will be more than all of the fedgov’s annual personal income tax receipts.
Market King
That isn’t capitalism and you know it. That’s the criminal actions of the ruling oligarchy with the assistance of the criminal actions of the corrupt politicians, and you know that too.
The oligarchy and politicians think the sheeple won’t ever fight back. The oligarchy is wrong, but they’re too busy laughing (all the way to the bank), partying and rolling around in their cash to see that all they are doing is setting themselves up as the first targets to be eliminated in the coming upheaval.
So yes, god bless America and the real Americans that work together with honesty and integrity to care and provide for each other, by means of true capitalism, the creation and exchange of value for mutual benefit.
#4 Wat is your suggestion ? Deny reality and wait for total collapse ?
If there weren’t crazy countries like Russia, China, North Korea and many others I would say yes we should go bankrupt and try something different.
However, that is not the case and weakness(s) on our part, particularly if the country goes into bankruptcy, would mean potential oppurtunities for these countries to rise in power and spread their influences; even influence our stupid politicians/leaders/CEO’s/etc to turn against us.
Yea, it does sound crazy and ludicrous but then these countries are exactly that.
#7 There is no suggestion.
The whole notion of US bankruptcy is beyond ludicrous. Only a buffoon would take that serious.
Realistically the only option is raise taxes and cut spending.
As a country we are spending too much on health care, with poor results. Have a true single payer universal healthcare system, and the cost per person should be a third of what it currently is (as it is in the Uk). And you’ll still get better outcomes. The current health care bill isn’t this – and I don’t think will help much. Throw it out and start again.
If you watch the movie I.O.U.S.A its striking how much of our overall financial problem is mixed up in health care.
Our total obligations (including social security + medicare/medicaid, debt etc) was over 53 trillion when that film was made, dwarfing the 9 trillion debt. In the movie people were freaking out at 9 trillion debt. As I look to today we are now have 12.3 trillion debt.
You can always check this out
Which has the total debt per family currently at 680,000 USD. Holy crap. In 2004 net average family wealth was 448,000 USD.
That is a an extrapolation – applying future obligations – medicare/aid social security etc. So presumably can be lowered via changes in how those are handled.
Cut spending on defense. US has 5% of world population but has 50% of spending on military.
Completely reform health care.
Raise taxes. And cut spending.
And we will still be in a bad place. BUT a much better place than we are now.
Or maybe, since nobody seems to be doing anything sensible, perhaps bankruptcy is inevitable. I doubt that’ll be a painless option.
“The whole notion of US bankruptcy is beyond ludicrous. Only a buffoon would take that serious.”
It’s “seriously.” And you are nothing more that a troll. No further responses to or even reading of your trolls will be forthcoming from me.
#11 I’m with you on defense spending. Time to give up the dreams of Empire. We can’t afford it.
Excerpt:
We have two options:
1. We can take our medicine. This means splitting up the commercial banking and investment functions into physically and legally separate firms so that never again will the investment activities of a firm be able to trash the depository function and thus expose the taxpayer to systemic collapse. We can prosecute prior fraud and make clear that any future fraud will also draw an immediate and vigorous criminal and civil fraud statute response. Yes, this will mean the equity market will adjust to actual, not falsely-inflated value on a forward basis and yes, this means we will trade lower – perhaps a lot lower. But it also means the market will be STABLE with prices based on actual earnings and profits, not fraudulent ponzi-style games.
2. We can continue to pretend that market prices don’t matter, that you can securitize debt and yet end up with more yield in the product securities than existed in the original lending transactions (that is, that people not only work for free but work for a negative amount of money!) and that there will always be a greater sucker upon which to offload whatever we buy. In other words we can continue to do what we’ve done up until now – base our entire capital market structure on an ever-expanding pyramid of fraud and lies. We’ve done this twice in the last ten years and the consequence was two horrific market crashes in a decade’s time, employment capacity utilization back to 1980s levels, a $1.6 trillion annual deficit as far as the eye can see and a market that has lost half or more of its value – on balance and with account for inflation – over that decade’s time.
If we continue to choose path #2 there is a very real risk that the next crash will be too large for the government to be able to rescue or that the public will not permit another rescue irrespective of the government’s desire to do so. That is, either the buyers of our debt may say “no mas!” or the people may say “screw you!” Indeed it should be assumed at this point that another bailout at any time in the next decade or more will be unable to be mounted, either due to public outrage, creditor revolt or both.
As such choice #2 is literally gambling with the future of the nation – and that, my friends, is a gamble we must not take.
#9
US is on the straight path to financial doom
Only people with severely limited ability to comprehend would miss that or call it ludicrous.
freddybobs68k and Winston are right on top of it. (Specially good post #14).
The United States is already MASSIVELY insolvent. The purpose of bankruptcy is to try to return to solvency.
How many of us, in our personal lives, could be in debt for one full year’s income, and be able to pay it off if we still spend more than we earn?
The US as a whole is in this situation, and it cannot continue. Either we pay or we default. If we pay, then the free ride is over.
And bankruptcy is better than default.
Can everyone say “standard of living adjustment”? I knew you could.
I’m all for a %50 income tax for people making $25,000-$100,000, and a %75 income tax for people making $100,000-$800,000, and a %90 income tax for people making greater than $800,000. This will cause companies to invest money in growing their business rather than in stupidly high pay (with respect to most of the world’s population).
But, the system really has no solution other than to force a complete reset, and then make US wages equal to China and India for equivelent work.
Remember to slogan from the 80s, “EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK!”
#17 – “I’m all for a %50 income tax for people making $25,000-$100,000…”
You go first. Give 50% of your income to the government. Or give it to a charity.
I’m keeping my money.
chuck
whats the point of keeping your money if its going to become worthless?
“I’m all for a %50 income tax for people making $25,000-$100,000, and a %75 income tax for people making $100,000-$800,000, and a %90 income tax for people making greater than $800,000. This will cause companies to invest money in growing their business rather than in stupidly high pay (with respect to most of the world’s population).”
If you were to tax everyone at 100% of their income it would not even pay the interest on the debt.
You guys might be on to something with the dollor becoming worthless. Ya know what a companies will start providing soon.
Company Cars, Company Housing, Company Groceries….
And not long after that. Credit issues will be resolved by indentured servitude. We’ve already seen the Bill of Rights ignored with the DUI Exception. The Credit Exception sounds more and more inevitable.
#20 he_who_must_not_be_flamed
It says here that 09 interest was $383 Billion. Which with 12 trillion of debt would put the interest rate at 3.2%.
With 12 trillion debt (the rest isn’t debt – its obligations, ie no interest), then per household, then the debt per household is 108k USD. Which means each household has 3,440 USD per year to pay _just in interest_.
Yikes.
That’s worse than I thought – but possible with average US household income of 50k USD.
Our financial system is one gigantic ponzi/pyramid scheme and we have no way to get
out from under it. Maybe I should spend all my money before it becomes worthless and go on welfare.
You are running deficits of over one trillion dollars. Going bankrupt won’t solve that problem, unless you’re interest payments are higher than your deficits, current and projected.
If you go bankrupt, you will have problems getting people to lend you money. This is a good strategy for smaller African countries, if they can manage themselves after the bankruptcy.
#17, I’m all for a %50 income tax for people making $25,000-$100,000, and a %75 income tax for people making $100,000-$800,000, and a %90 income tax for people making greater than $800,000.
Let me get this straight.
Someone making 25k, pays 50%, is now brining home less than someone making 24k?
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Moran.
Remember to slogan from the 80s, “EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK!”
Not everybody is equal. They are only created equal.
#24, Buy silver and gold. It’s the only way to be sure.
#26 LibertyLover
‘Someone making 25k, pays 50%, is now brining home less than someone making 24k?’
Presumably he means they pay 50% on the amount they earn over 25k. Thus problem solved.
Don’t know if that plan is right. But it seems likely there are more taxes in our future, with nothing to see for them, as they pay off interest and debt.
Including “unfunded liabilities” is intellectually dishonest. That is how insurance works. You wouldn’t tell a life insurance company that they are insolvent because they don’t have enough cash on hand to pay out every policy. By ignoring future premiums you make the problem seem worse than it is.
Many countries have a worse debt load than we do now, note that I’m talking about debt/gdp and not deficit. It would be nice if we spent our deficit on something more than useless wars and banker bonuses, but that is a different discussion.
Looking at the history of England and France is instructive in matters of debt. England was a smaller economy, but was always able to take on more debt than France. This ability helped them hold their own militarily against a much large land foe and build up a naval force to provide a safety buffer.
Being seen as a lower default risk allows capital to be had at much lower rates. It is possible that American politicians would cease payment on government debt, but we should hope not.
It is worrying to me that the US is forced toward shorter term debt. It isn’t short term debt like that which caused Russia to default, but it isn’t a good sign.
Higher taxes are a necessity, and we ought to soak the rich. The top few percent have benefited disproportionally from the Bush II years(when the debt started to grow more rapidly). They should feel the pinch too.
Defense spending should be slashed. Why do we need a big base in Japan, South Korea or Germany when those countries are wealthy and can fund their own protection?
Iraq is rather stable. Leave.
Afghanistan is a craphole. We’d be peacekeeping there forever. Let countries in that region do it.
Israel and Egypt … we give them billions a year. Time to stop doing that.
The idea of a pyramid scheme of Social Security is a farce. Change the benefit from cash money to living quarters plus meals.
“Politically impossibility of reducing costs?” — LAFF! It’s called reality. Politicians need to step up to the plate, foreign countries are funding our quality of life through debt and sometime you have to be responsible and get your hands dirty.
@29
“Many countries have a worse debt load than we do now”
Name some names of countries that aren’t third world landfills that have debt in excess of 1 year of GDP.