What is the National Debt?

A large foreign debt is not desireable because it leaves the economy vulnerable to outside pressures.....

The US currently owers over $3 trillion to foreigners.....

Some economists worry about the possibility of panic selling by the foreign holders of U.S. debt, especially with the drop in the value of the dollars, which in turn could set off a major sell-off in the U.S. stock market....and a recession.....

Currently China and Japan amongst others are happy to keep buying US securities as it keeps their own currencies low and thus their exports competitive....

if this situation were to change then this would cause a lot of trouble for the US economy - as the dollar value would tumble....

can't see it happening any time soon...but it should be a long term concern.....
 
Didn't I just read that the IRS brings in 3 trillion per year? So a 3T debt in meaningless. (My mortgage is lots more than one years pay) Also, our per-citizen debt is normal for the different countries, which varies from 3x ours to negative. And, sure, we import cheesy consumer goods from China, but we only pay for them with printed paper. AAand the fact that the Chinese have billions of dollars piled up means that they have a vested interest in maintaining our economy. I lose a lot more sleep worrying about my personal debt than I do the nations.
 
Bruce said:
I know I'm exposing a great deal of ignorance here, but F it, I'm an American.

What exactly is the National Debt and why is it that liberals seem to be the only ones concerned about paying it off?.......
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Unbelievable. You're either correct about your ignorance or you're joking.

The ideology who is consistently "concerned about paying it off" is the one who is not in power.

I also notice nobody has mentioned the indirect debt yet. That's the loan guarantees that the U.S. so freely issues out so regularly, including home mortage guarantees for citizens, guarantees signed for foreign governments (which are virtually guaranteed to default), bank and savings & loan account insurances, etc.

The indirect loans make the direct debt look tiny, yet pose the potential to complete the bankruptcy of the U.S. economy and currency (especially at the moment they were supposed to do the precise opposite).
 
casebro said:
Didn't I just read that the IRS brings in 3 trillion per year? So a 3T debt in meaningless. (My mortgage is lots more than one years pay) Also, our per-citizen debt is normal for the different countries, which varies from 3x ours to negative. And, sure, we import cheesy consumer goods from China, but we only pay for them with printed paper. AAand the fact that the Chinese have billions of dollars piled up means that they have a vested interest in maintaining our economy. I lose a lot more sleep worrying about my personal debt than I do the nations.
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The size of the debt is not that important, it’s the size of your debt maintenance that is important. The amount of money that you have to spend to keep up with your interest payments is what matters.

Think of it like the minimum payment on your credit card bill. If your minimum monthly payment goes up 4% per year, but your take home wages are going up 5% a year, you can keep that debt going essentially forever. If your minimum monthly payment goes up 5% per year, but your take home wages are going up 4% a year however, you are in long term trouble. Eventually, the minimum bill you have to send the credit card company will simply be more than you have.
 
Huntster said:
The ideology who is consistently "concerned about paying it off" is the one who is not in power.
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There have been two presidents in my lifetime who ever achieved a balanced budget. Those were Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton.

Jimmy Carter didn't achieve a balanced budget, but the annual deficit was lower when he left than when he entered.

Meanwhile, Bush II and Reagan caused the debt to balloon.


But that was a good point about the indirect debt. That's pretty scary stuff. It's already bitten us once, during the Savings and Loan collapse and bailout, but we apparently didn't learn.
 
HarryKeogh said:
What's the national debt? The national debt is larger than a breadbox and slightly smaller than the observable universe.
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Representing the national debt to the penny is just under the precision of an IEEE floating-point number.
 
Bruce said:
What exactly is the National Debt and why is it that liberals seem to be the only ones concerned about paying it off?
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Can someone please tell this to the liberals who have the governors seat and both legislative bodies in the great state of Illinois? Seems they must have missed that memo on their way to a massive borrowing campaign and raiding state employee pension funds of billions of dollars...
 
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