Our Debt

[RightField]

Not wrong. The price of a barrel tripled in price the day (THE DAY) that Biden's DOE secretary made his grand announcement that the "era of fossil fuels is over". Squirrel it any way you want, but it doesn't change the truth.

 

[bumpercars]

Not wrong. The price of a barrel tripled in price the day (THE DAY) that Biden's DOE secretary made his grand announcement that the "era of fossil fuels is over". Squirrel it any way you want, but it doesn't change the truth.

I took a look at crude oil prices since Biden's inauguration and it looks like they stayed between $50 and $120 the whole time, which seems like it would rule out any tripling. Can you provide a source?

 

[OralAllOver]

Many of our spending programs are "programmed" and virtually all of them have been put into place by Dems. Welfare, for example, is "programmed" in that if you qualify, you get the benefits whether it was budgeted or not. Social spending has gone from 12% of federal spending in the 60's to over 70% now. That is all Dem spending.

Bull fckn crap. Every politician grabs what he can. Yes, Democrats often try to offer a boost to "the least of these" AND THEIR CHILDREN. Republicans shovel largess at the super wealthy. Huge agricultural corporations? Tax breaks AND SUBSIDIES (!!!) to oil companies. Elon Musk's core talent is sucking off the public teat. And ridiculous weapon systems

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Bull fckn crap. Every politician grabs what he can. Yes, Democrats often try to offer a boost to "the least of these" AND THEIR CHILDREN. Republicans shovel largess at the super wealthy. Huge agricultural corporations? Tax breaks AND SUBSIDIES (!!!) to oil companies. Elon Musk's core talent is sucking off the public teat. And ridiculous weapon systems

 

[SkyBubble]

The Democrats say the Republicans are responsible for it; the Republicans say the Democrats are responsible for it. Both are right.

The problem is massive Federal spending, well in excess of what they take in, which creates deficits, which in turn create debt.

Government has no money. Repeat: government has no money. It can only take money out of other people's pockets. It does not produce goods or services nor sell any product.

When government spends a dollar, it must first get that dollar from someone else. And it has only three ways to do so:

Taxes. The money it takes directly from you and me when we earn money, spend money, or do pretty much anything else with our money.

Borrowing. This is a BIG problem. Government borrowing simply creates debt and causes higher taxes and spending in the future as it gets paid. This is bad for the economy and a danger to liberty.

Inflation. Inflating the money supply through fiat money. That is the primary reason our that as the late Yogi Berra put it, "a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

Let's say you have 100 pens in the world. The scarcity of those pens makes each one valuable; you can get a lot for them. Now let's say you and I come along and make 100 more pens. We've just reduced the value of each pen. You can't get as much for any individual pen.

Dollars are a commodity like pens or food or cars. The more of them you produce, the less each one is worth. We don't think of it as a commodity, but it is. It's simply the exchange commodity.

The simplest, most effective, fairest solution is to cut spending (rather significantly) and cut taxes accordingly, broadening the economic base and ending the devaluation of our dollars. But neither party wants to do that because each has priorities for how it can run our lives better than we can. But until we cut spending, this economic debt spiral is simply going to get worse and worse.

 

[Shaglus_Ziegler]

An objective view of our debt

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny

It’s actually our credit. We’ve been taken so bad.

 

[rgraham666]

The Democrats say the Republicans are responsible for it; the Republicans say the Democrats are responsible for it. Both are right.

The problem is massive Federal spending, well in excess of what they take in, which creates deficits, which in turn create debt.

Government has no money. Repeat: government has no money. It can only take money out of other people's pockets. It does not produce goods or services nor sell any product.

When government spends a dollar, it must first get that dollar from someone else. And it has only three ways to do so:

Taxes. The money it takes directly from you and me when we earn money, spend money, or do pretty much anything else with our money.

Borrowing. This is a BIG problem. Government borrowing simply creates debt and causes higher taxes and spending in the future as it gets paid. This is bad for the economy and a danger to liberty.

Inflation. Inflating the money supply through fiat money. That is the primary reason our that as the late Yogi Berra put it, "a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

Let's say you have 100 pens in the world. The scarcity of those pens makes each one valuable; you can get a lot for them. Now let's say you and I come along and make 100 more pens. We've just reduced the value of each pen. You can't get as much for any individual pen.

Dollars are a commodity like pens or food or cars. The more of them you produce, the less each one is worth. We don't think of it as a commodity, but it is. It's simply the exchange commodity.

The simplest, most effective, fairest solution is to cut spending (rather significantly) and cut taxes accordingly, broadening the economic base and ending the devaluation of our dollars. But neither party wants to do that because each has priorities for how it can run our lives better than we can. But until we cut spending, this economic debt spiral is simply going to get worse and worse.

The value of money is imaginary. As all values are.


We treat money as real because it is convenient to do so. It makes doing business and other transactions easier.