print“Americans have over $886 billion in credit card debt, a figure that’s expected to rise to $1.177 trillion this year. More specifically, the report stated that each card holder has an average credit card debt of $5,100 and this number is projected to reach $6,500 by the end of the year.”
AND:
“The average U.S. consumer has a debt-to-income ratio of 150% … The ratio never exceeded 80% during the 1960s and 1970s.”
[FOX News has more.]
Government debt is, as Judge Napolitano put it, “so high, so insurmountable, so incapable of being repaid because the Republican leadership caved, that we have returned to business as usual; meaning that the government will not attempt to repay the debt. When various parts of it become due, the government will just roll it over and borrow more. This will go on until a large enough group in the Congress has the courage to say stop.
[SNIP]
Still on the topic of “values,” a preponderant number of Americans share the values of their leaders, at least when it comes to finances.
ZIMBABWE IS THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODEL.
However, the Greeks are not far behind.
If I am not mistaken, the UNFUNDED LIABILITIES of the U.S. govt are approx $100 TRILLION. If only $1.5 T per year is acceptable to cut, how will $100 T ever be reduced???
The LINK below will reveal the primary reason why the world is screwed:
http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-2-number-6/power-corrupts
Ilana, a couple of years ago, I jokingly commented that the “Replicator” of STAR TREK fame would solve the world’s economic problems and you replied with the correct response involving shortages, alternative uses, etc. and that the “Replicator” was pure fantasy…Ah, but I disagree.
The Federal Reserve has many. They are called PRINTING PRESSES. Furthermore, each politician is aware of them…uses them to advantage…and, like drug dealers, gets us hooked on easy money fixes which debases the currency of us all.
My solution is to populate the oil & coal rich States of Montana, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, and Wyoming with libertarians, secede, and…DOES ANYONE REALLY THINK THAT WOULD MAKE A LONG-TERM DIFFERENCE?
I do not know, but it would be worth a try!
I’m a freak who has ZERO debt and who loses sleep worrying about the impact of Debtmageddon on myself and my child. Since the budget was nearly balanced under the Clinton-Lewinsky administration, we have tried three idiotic elixirs to goose up the economy – they have been favored by politicians on both sides of the aisle: Elixir One – easy credit with Federal Reserve printing – helped bring the housing bubble and the bailouts. Elixir Two is “stimulus spending” – which has stimulated nothing – moronic wasteful programs such as Kash 4 Klunkers, Green Energy “Investments”, and high speed rail. Elixir Three is “tax cutting”. Even Messiah Obama has embraced this third elixir by cutting the Social(ist) (in)Security tax in half! Did all of a sudden people stop getting old??? The program was already sliding into default when Obama and Congress just plain old cut the tax in half! Republicans, addicted as they are to this Elixir, went along.
“The economy will be completely recovered (!!) three months after I take office” claims Messiah-wannabe Michelle Bachmann. As for the Tea Party – like “Occupy Wall Street”, the “Get the Government away from MY Medicare” crowd is angry and intellectually feckless.
My wife and I have a standing policy, we pay off the credit card each month. Otherwise we pay cash. This month is going to be tight, car repairs, trip to New Mexico to see her mother, but we’ll do it. That twenty percent interest rate should be enough to give a person with a negative balance the hebie jebbies. I can not imagine a five thousand at twenty percent debt.
For one, I’ve got no ground to stand on here. I’m one of those dopey kids who went to college and now I’m in perpetual debt.
Too little wisdom too late, in my case.
Parents: Your kids deserve to know that a nonzero fraction of people will try to screw them out of their money and their livelihoods. (My parents didn’t like being negative.)
The Republicans and Democrats can’t be counted on to stop the spending spree. The short term incentives built into our present system reward politicians who spend currency that must be printed rather than earned. Politicians get votes and financial support from the true customers of the federal government–the special interests who receive its currency. That includes federal employees, subsidized citizens, and the rent seeking corporations and banksters. The rest of the citizens don’t count for much.
The Treasury and Fed will continue to inflate the currency supply until they are stopped when people refuse to buy Treasury bonds. By then it will be too late. The resulting crash of the dollar will destroy the credibility of the Fed and the federal government. Just as the expense, corruption and mendacity of the Catholic church suddenly led to the end of its wide and exclusive influence in Europe around 1500, the profligate prevaricating popinjay leading this country will lead us to the end of the federal government as we know it very soon. The resulting upheaval won’t be good in the short run. This is going to hurt a lot.
READ IT AND WEEP…
http://mises.org/daily/5700/Fiat-Money-and-the-Euro-Crisis
My Ron…we’re in the same club. Robert, we love using cash…make cashiers flip! Nick, I started the same way, but you can change it if you truly work at it…I’ve read that truck drivers are making $80,000 in Montana / North Dakota where the KEYSTONE XL is proposed to be routed. Eric, I’m with you in that THIS IS GOING TO HURT A LOT.
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!
Dennis, there is a group (I don’t know how large) of freedom minded people moving to Wyoming. The website is http://www.freestatewyoming.org. It was started by a guy who writes under the pseudonym Boston T. Party. He’s written a number of books on freedom and guns including, “Molôn Labé!” That title comes from the response by King Leonidas at Thermopylae to the Persian demand that the 300 Spartans lay down their weapons. In English it translates, “come and get them”. The book is a fictional account of how Wyoming might successfully secede in the future.
I think Alaska will more likely be the first to secede. It has many advantages over other states:
Not land locked.
History of oil royalty payments to citizens which creates an incentive to removing the Federal limits on increased production.
Already existing secessionist movement.
Dispersed rugged individualistic population.
Hey Eric, it seems that quite some years ago, a group of Libertarians / libertarians were asking people to move to New Hampshire. I don’t recall how that worked-out. I am of the opinion that Libertarian politics would be better served by aggregating into smaller Townships, Villages, Cities and enacting libertarian legislation promoting freedom and capitalism.
However, Thank You for the LINK and here’s one for you – http://www.jpfo.org – and please note the research material and publications offered. Aaron Zelman, the Founder, was a Medic in Vietnam. He was a very polite, honorable man who saw what armed dictatorships could do to unarmed civilized societies. RIP, Aaron, an American and a man of principle.