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World Debt

ServiceSoon said:
It's actually quite hilarious
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I was going to make some smart-alec remark about how this is as informative as your previous post (at least it doesn't take too long to watch :D).

Instead, I have ftfy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5QwKEwo4Bc

(The [yt] and [/yt] tags are only supposed to have the numbers/letters from the v= (ie the hilighted part) inserted between them).
 
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JDC said:
What, nobody's gonna say it? Sigh, fine!
Ahem,



So why don't we just put this on some World Credit Card?

What?!?

:duck:
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how about a one-off $100 quadrillion coin made out of cow dung? seriously, why not? its no more ponzi than we've already got. gotta keep it all going somehow
 
kevsta said:
how about a one-off $100 quadrillion coin made out of cow dung? seriously, why not? its no more ponzi than we've already got. gotta keep it all going somehow
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Aitch Ee double-hockey-sticks no, as I've pointed out I own some of the UK government's debt. There's enough excrement out here in the countryside without me having to accept more in exchange for my investment :D
 
The Don said:
Aitch Ee double-hockey-sticks no, as I've pointed out I own some of the UK government's debt. There's enough excrement out here in the countryside without me having to accept more in exchange for my investment :D
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well if they go that route at least you'll be able to counterfeit it fairly easily :D
 
The Don said:
In theory a country could have a large government debt but no foreign debt at all.
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And in practice. That's essentially Japan's situation. Of course some foreigners own Japanese bonds, but Japan owns more foreign bonds than foreigners own Japanese bonds.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
The guy holding the sign is obviously an idiot. I have no doubt he thinks the world is in debt to the Jews or the Illuminati or some other shadowy organization.

"The World" isn't in debt to anyone, or any thing. Various countries are in debt to various other countries.
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OK, I see that. My great grandma was Jewish, so you know....
 
Orphia Nay said:
With regards the US debt - are other countries in debt to the US for just as much?
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No. Here's psionl0's link again:
psionl0 said:
List of the World's Largest Creditor and Debtor Nations.
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Among country balance of payments figures, the database also features the “Net International Investment Position” of a country, which is defined as the difference between foreign assets that domestic residents own and domestic assets held by foreign entities.
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The countries with positive numbers are owed more than than they owe, while the countries with negative numbers owe more than they are owed.
 
SlackerBabbath said:
So if every country that was owed money by other countries suddenly decided to cancel all the debts, what effect would that have? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing?
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It would be a good thing if you were to lend me money and then decide to cancel the debt.

Primarily it would be a nonsensical thing from the perspective of those who are owed money. It would be a bad thing for them and a great thing for the debtors.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it would be a bad thing.
 
Puppycow said:
It would be a good thing if you were to lend me money and then decide to cancel the debt.

Primarily it would be a nonsensical thing from the perspective of those who are owed money. It would be a bad thing for them and a great thing for the debtors.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it would be a bad thing.
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To really simplify it, if Britain owed America £10 and if America owed Russia £10 and if Russia owed Britain £10, wouldn't it be just as effective for us all to wipe the debts as it would be for us all to pay our debts?
 
SlackerBabbath said:
To really simplify it, if Britain owed America £10 and if America owed Russia £10 and if Russia owed Britain £10, wouldn't it be just as effective for us all to wipe the debts as it would be for us all to pay our debts?
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Let's put it another way. A owes B £10, B owes C £10 and C owes A £10. Cancel the Debt.

However A borrowed £5 from D and £5 from E to pay B the £10. What do D and E get?

Norm
 
fromdownunder said:
Let's put it another way. A owes B £10, B owes C £10 and C owes A £10. Cancel the Debt.

However A borrowed £5 from D and £5 from E to pay B the £10. What do D and E get?

Norm
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Well in that case the obvious answer should be for B to pay it to C, who in turn passed it onto to A, who then used it to pay back D and E.
 
SlackerBabbath said:
To really simplify it, if Britain owed America £10 and if America owed Russia £10 and if Russia owed Britain £10, wouldn't it be just as effective for us all to wipe the debts as it would be for us all to pay our debts?
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Net debt is the difference between what you owe and what you are owed.

You can't wipe out net debts in the way you described.

You can't even wipe out gross debts if the entities involved are different. If Walmart USA owes £10 to Harrods UK and Starbucks UK owed £10 to the NYSE then cancelling the debts would create two very happy companies and two very unhappy companies.
 
SlackerBabbath said:
To really simplify it, if Britain owed America £10 and if America owed Russia £10 and if Russia owed Britain £10, wouldn't it be just as effective for us all to wipe the debts as it would be for us all to pay our debts?
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Unfortunately it's not that tidy.

Internationally, the US is the largest net debtor so in the event that all debts were cancelled the US would do very nicely. Japan is the largest net creditor so in the event that all debts were cancelled Japan would do very badly.

Government debt, in the form of government bonds are the core components of many investment and annuity schemes. If government debt was cancelled, people with these kinds of investments would suffer very badly.

If debt was cancelled on this scale, no-one would be willing to lend ever again.
 
kevsta said:
how about a one-off $100 quadrillion coin made out of cow dung? seriously, why not? its no more ponzi than we've already got. gotta keep it all going somehow
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Who needs cow dung when we have plenty of these ...
zimbabwe-banknotes-100-trillion-dollars-front.jpg
 
oh no he Gideoned it. :)

and re this

SlackerBabbath said:
To really simplify it, if Britain owed America £10 and if America owed Russia £10 and if Russia owed Britain £10, wouldn't it be just as effective for us all to wipe the debts as it would be for us all to pay our debts?
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the Aussie chaps summed it up rather well..

 
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Puppycow said:
It would be a good thing if you were to lend me money and then decide to cancel the debt.

Primarily it would be a nonsensical thing from the perspective of those who are owed money. It would be a bad thing for them and a great thing for the debtors.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it would be a bad thing.
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But....but....but....the Occutards thought it would be a great idea!
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7E9SUwlooE

Its easy to say that debt is owed to other countries. When you begin to dig deeper into it, you ought to find that the biggest creditors are not countries at all, but very few look that deep into it. And if say the World Bank or the IMF cannot be trusted, the what good is it to have data from the IMF stating who the creditors are and who the debtors are, if their function is to cover up where the money is really coming from and going to?

But people here are so scared to be a "conspiracy theorists", because most of you seem to be so indoctrined to believe in the mass media, governments and rulings of judges, that they cannot possibly see through the smokescreen when they refuse to dig deep enough.

The Confessions of an Economic Hitman must have been up for debunking here at some point. How well did that go?
 
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